“If they were inseparable”- wrote Giraldus Cambrensis in one his most famous pronouncements on the Welsh- “they would be insuperable.” Eight hundred years after it was written, it retains some currency as a description of a people all too divided by language, culture and geography.

Born at Manorbier Castle in Pembrokeshire, Gerald knew all about such divisions because he had a foot in two camps. His fathers’ family, the de Barrys, were Norman while his mother was of noble Welsh stock and related to the royal house of Deheubarth. Norman warlords held sway over the lowland south and west of Wales while indigenous Welsh princes squabbled over the rest.

This background – coupled with a sophisticated ecclesiastical training in Paris- perfectly equipped Gerald to write about Wales for the benefit of other Latin scholars around Europe. Along with Geoffrey of Monmouth, he bestowed a cultural identity on a land that had hitherto been ignorantly perceived as wild and uncivilised.

While regarding himself as a cut above the average Welsh person, Gerald did not consider himself to be anything other than Welsh himself. So his descriptions of its people and places were generally affectionate. In fact there was something of the medieval spin-doctor about him.

Take, for example, the Welsh talent for choral arrangement in Descriptio Cambriae : “ In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison like the inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts. You will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers who all at length unite with organic melody.”

Indeed Gerald was regarded as too-Welsh-by-half by some powerful outsiders. Thus his ambition to become Bishop of St David’s was repeatedly thwarted by Canterbury as more dependable candidates were inserted instead.

It would be mischievous to suggest comparisons may be found in more recent appointments, yet so much of Gerald’s life and work remains eerily resonant in contemporary Wales.