Gerald of Wales preaches the crusade

1188

Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury and the chronicler Gerald of Wales rode a Lent-long preaching tour through Wales, recruiting about three thousand men to take the cross. Gerald's diary of the trip became the Itinerarium Cambriae, one of the best descriptive texts of any medieval region. His account preserves details of Welsh geography, customs, and church politics that no other source records, making it indispensable to historians of medieval Wales.