PREFACE. OF all his numerous writings, the Gemma Ecclesiastica appears to have been the favourite of Giraldus. He has referred to it on various occasions with manifest pride. Perhaps no more remarkable proof can be found of the complacency with which he regarded it than in the narrative of his own exploits, written by himself. He tells his readers that, whilst he was on a visit to the court of Innocent III. to defend his election to the see of St. David, he made a present of his works to that eminent pontiff. It was the fashion of other men to testify their liberality by laying money at the apostolic feet. His offering was more than money -libri non libra; and considering the times he was not much mistaken in his estimate. Among other volumes, thus presented, was this of the Gemma Ecclesiastica, the pearl and jewel of the church. Nothing could have been more gratifying to the pride of an unknown author, born in the far west, native of a barbarous soil-it is his own expression--than the curiosity excited by his writings in the court of Innocent III. It might be questioned whether the tumults of applause which greeted him at the first recitation of his Topography of Wales, in the schools of Oxford, occasioned him half as much pleasure as did the importunity of grave bishops and cardinals to obtain a sight of these precious volumes. They besieged the chamber of the pontiff; they implored him for a loan of the manuscripts. The pope was deaf to entreaties. Next to his Bible and his Aristotle, like the student of Oxenford in the Canterbury Tales, Innocent kept the precious deposit at his bed's head. He would not part with a single volume; for he was a ripe scholar and loved good books.' He tantalized curiosity by pointing out to the cardinals, who surrounded him, the numerous beauties and choice sentences in the works before him. At last, and as a signal favour, he permitted each of his cardinals to take away for perusal a single volume; but the Gemma Ecclesiastica he would never allow to be out of his sight. It was reserved like pontifical wine for pontifical taste; no eyes below those of the successor of St. Peter must venture to profane its mysteries. That book, hitherto reserved for the exclusive perusal of popes and archbishops, is now submitted to the reader. It has never been printed before, and no other MS. of it is known to exist except the one, now in the possession of his Grace the archbishop of Canterbury, to whose liberality and condescension I am indebted for the loan of it. Whether this be the very volume that was presented by Giraldus to pope Innocent III., or whether the papal copy still remains among the unsunned treasures of the Vatican, I can not undertake to determine. The Lambeth copy is worthy of presentation to pope or cardinal. It is a noble MS., very carefully written in double columns in a hand of the thirteenth century; the ink is still as glossy as a raven's down, and the vellum as rich as consular ivory. Strangely, too, some leaves in the middle are stained and shrivelled with sea water. But all theory on this subject I must leave to others. It is enough that a genuine MS. of the work is still preserved at Lambeth, whatever may have been the fate of that which Innocent once kept at his bed's head. "Copiose literatus erat et literaturam dilexit." De Gest. iii. 18. |