{1}It is a somewhat curious coincidence that the island of Barry is now owned by a descendant of Gerald de Windor's elder brother -the Earl of Plymouth.
{2}"Mirror of the Church,"ii.33.
{3}"Social England,"vol.i.p.342.
{4}Published in the first instance in the "Transactions of the Cymmrodaian Society,"and subsequently amplified and brought out in book form.
{5}Introduction to Borrow's "Wild Wales"in the Everyman Series.
{6}Geoffrey,who ended his life as Bishop of St.Asaph,was supposed to have found the material for his "History of the British Kings"in a Welsh book,containing a history of the Britons,which Waltor Colenius,Archdeacon of Oxford,picked up during a journey in Brittany.
{7}Walter Map,another Archdeacon of Oxford,was born in Glamorganshire,the son of a Norman knight by a Welsh mother.Inter alia he was the author of a Welsh work on agriculture.
{8}Green,"Hist.Eng.People,"i.172.
{9}"England under the Angevin Kings,"vol.ii.457.
{10}Project Gutenberg has released "The Deion of Wales"as a separate eText -David Price.
{11}Giraldus has committed an error in placing Urban III.at the head of the apostolic see;for he died at Ferrara in the month of October,A.D.1187,and was succeeded by Gregory VIII.whose short reign expired in the month of December following.Clement III.was elected pontiff in the year 1188.Frederick I.surnamed Barbarossa,succeeded Conrad III.in the empire of Germany,in March,1152,and was drowned in a river of Cilicia whilst bathing,in 1190.Isaac Angelus succeeded Andronicus I.as emperor of Constantinople,in 1185,and was dethroned in 1195.Philip II.surnamed Augustus,from his having been born in the month of August,was crowned at Rheims,in 1179,and died at Mantes,in 1223.William II.king of Sicily,surnamed the Good,succeeded in 1166to his father,William the Bad,and died in 1189.Bela III.king of Hungary,succeeded to the throne in 1174,and died in 1196.Guy de Lusignan was crowned king of Jerusalem in 1186,and in the following year his city was taken by the victorious Saladin.
{12}New Radnor.
{13}Rhys ap Gruffydd was grandson to Rhys ap Tewdwr,prince of South Wales,who,in 1090,was slain in an engagement with the Normans.He was a prince of great talent,but great versatility of character,and made a conspicuous figure in Welsh history.He died in 1196,and was buried in the cathedral of St.David's;where his effigy,as well as that of his son Rhys Gryg,still remain in a good state of preservation.
{14}Peter de Leia,prior of the Benedictine monastery of Wenlock,in Shropshire,was the successful rival of Giraldus for the bishopric of Saint David's,vacant by the death of David Fitzgerald,the uncle of our author;but he did not obtain his promotion without considerable opposition from the canons,who submitted to the absolute sequestration of their property before they consented to his election,being desirous that the nephew should have succeeded his uncle.He was consecrated in 1176,and died in 1199.
{15}In the Latin of Giraldus,the name of Eineon is represented by AEneas,and Eineon Clyd by AEneas Claudius.
{16}Cruker Castle.The corresponding distance between Old and New Radnor evidently places this castle at Old Radnor,which was anciently called Pen-y-craig,Pencraig,or Pen-crug,from its situation on a rocky eminence.Cruker is a corruption,probably,from Crug-caerau,the mount,or height,of the fortifications.
{17}Buelth or Builth,a large market town on the north-west edge of the county of Brecon,on the southern banks of the Wye,over which there is a long and handsome bridge of stone.It had formerly a strong castle,the site and earthworks of which still remain,but the building is destroyed.
{18}Llan-Avan,a small church at the foot of barren mountains about five or six miles north-west of Buelth.The saint from whom it takes its name,was one of the sons of Cedig ab Cunedda;whose ancestor,Cunedda,king of the Britons,was the head of one of the three holy families of Britain.He is said to have lived in the beginning of the sixth century.
{19}Melenia,Warthrenion,Elevein,Elvenia,Melenyth,and Elvein,places mentioned in this first chapter,and varying in their orthography,were three different districts in Radnorshire:
Melenyth is a hundred in the northern part of the county,extending into Montgomeryshire,in which is the church of Keri:Elvein retains in modern days the name of Elvel,and is a hundred in the southern part of the county,separated from Brecknockshire by the Wye;and Warthrenion,in which was the castle built by prince Rhys at Rhaiadyr-gwy,seems to have been situated between the other two.
Warthrenion may more properly be called Gwyrthrynion,it was anciently one of the three comots of Arwystli,a cantref of Merioneth.In the year 1174,Melyenith was in the possession of Cadwallon ap Madawc,cousin german to prince Rhys;Elvel was held by Eineon Clyd and Gwyrthrynion by Eineon ap Rhys,both sons-in-law to that illustrious prince.
{20}The church of Saint Germanus is now known by the name of Saint Harmans,and is situated three or four miles from Rhaiadyr,in Radnorshire,on the right-hand of the road from thence to Llanidloes;it is a small and simple structure,placed on a little eminence,in a dreary plain surrounded by mountains.
{21}Several churches in Wales have been dedicated to Saint Curig,who came into Wales in the seventh century.
{22}Glascum is a small village in a mountainous and retired situation between Builth and Kington,in Herefordshire.
{23}Bangu.-This was a hand bell kept in all the Welsh churches,which the clerk or sexton took to the house of the deceased on the day of the funeral:when the procession began,a psalm was sung;the bellman then sounded his bell in a solemn manner for some time,till another psalm was concluded;and he again sounded it at intervals,till the funeral arrived at the church.