Using the materials afforded by the Laws of Howel alone, it would be possible to paint {56} a fairly full and accurate picture of life in Wales in the early Middle Ages. In addition to this source, however, we are fortunate in possessing a document of unique interest and great charm, a document which, though certainly later in date, does reflect the life of the country before it had become very greatly altered by Norman modes. This document is the account by Giraldus Cambrensis of his journey round Wales in 1188. In this journey Gerald was the companion of Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury. The ostensible object of the tour was to invite the princes and people of Wales to join in the Crusade against Saladin; but one cannot but suspect that Baldwin's real object was to establish the authority of Canterbury over the four Welsh sees. In order to do this he wished to celebrate Mass in each of the Welsh cathedrals--Llandaff, St. David's, Bangor, and St. Asaph--and in so doing he visited practically every corner in the country. Gerald is one of the most interesting men of his age. He was born in 1148 in the beautiful castle of Manorbier on the coast of Pembroke, the son of a Norman father and a Welsh mother. He was highly educated after the manner of the age, having studied at Paris, {57} and on one occasion having read a composition of his own before an admiring academic audience at Oxford. In 1188 he was an archdeacon, and the great objects of his life--to acquire for himself the bishopric of St. David's, and to convert that bishopric into an independent archbishopric of Wales--were already formed in his mind.