BARRY, Girald, commonly called Giraldus Cam-brensis, or Ġirald of Wales, an historian and ecclesiastic in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I., was born at the castle of Mainarper, near Pembroke, in 1146. By his mother lie was descended from the princes of South Wales; and his father, William Barry, was one of the chief men of that principality. Being a younger brother, and intended for the church, he was sent to St David’s, and educated in the family of his uncle, the bishop of that see. In a history of his own life and actions he acknowledges that in his early youth he was too playful; but having been severely reproached for it by his preceptors, he became a hard student, and greatly excelled all his schoolfellows in learning. When about twenty years of age, he was sent for his further improvement to the university of Paris, where he continued for three years, and, according to his own account, became an excellent rhetorician. On his return to Britain he entered into holy orders, and obtained several benefices both in England and Wales. But observing with much concern that his countrymen the Welsh were very backward in paying tithes of wool and cheese, probably from an inability to perceive any necessary connection between religion and strict regularity in satisfying the secular demands of the church, he applied to Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, and was appointed his legate in Wales for rectifying this and other disorders. Barry executed this commission with great spirit; excommunicating all, without distinction, who refused to compound matters with the church, and, in particular, delivering over bodily to the Evil One those who withheld the tithes of their cheese and wool. And not satisfied with enriching, he also attempted to reform, the clergy. He delated the archdeacon of Brecon to the archbishop, for the unpardonable crime of matrimony; and the poor man, refusing to put away his wife, was deprived of his archdeaconry, which was bestowed upon the zealous legate. In a word, in discharging the duties of this new office, he acted with a vigour which involved him in many quarrels; but, if we may believe himself, he was always in the right, and always victorious. On the death of his uncle, the bishop of St David’s, in 1176, he was elected his successor by the chapter; but this choice having been made without the permission, and contrary to the inclination, of Henry IL, Girald prudently declined to insist upon it, and went again to Paris to prosecute his studies, particularly in the civil and canon law, and in theology. He speaks with exultation of the prodigious fame which he acquired by his eloquent declamations in the schools, and of the crowded audiences who attended them, and were at a loss, he says, to know whether the sweetness of his voice, the beauty of his language, or the irresistible force of his arguments, was most to be admired. Having spent about four years at· Paris, he returned to St David’s, where he found every thing in confusion; and on the expulsion of the bishop by the people, which took place soon after, he was appointed administrator by the archbishop of Canterbury, and governed the diocese in that capacity till 1184, when the bishop was restored. About the same time he was called to court by Henry II., appointed one of his chaplains, and sent into Ireland with Prince John, by whom he was offered the united bishoprics of Fernes and Leighlin, but declined them, and employed his time in collecting materials for his Topography of Ireland, and his history of the conquest of that island, which was completed in three books in 1187. In 1188 he attended Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, in his progress through Wales, preaching a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land; an employment in which he tells us, with his usual modesty, that he was far more successful than the primate,—adding significantly, that the people were most affected with the Latin sermons, which they did not understand, melting into tears, and coming in crowds to take the cross. Henry IL, he assures us, entertained the most favourable opinion of his virtues and abilities; yet somehow that monarch would never advance him to any higher dignity in the church, on account, as Barry opines, of his relation to the princes and great men of Wales. But on the accession of Richard 1. in 1189, his prospects of preferment brightened; for he was sent by that prince into Wales to preserve the peace of the country, and was even joined in commission with William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, as one of the regents of the kingdom. He failed, however, to improve this favourable opportunity; and having fixed his heart on the see of St David’s, the bishop of which was very old and infirm, he refused the bishopric of Bangor in 1190, and that of Landaff the year following. But in 1192, the state of public affairs, and the course of his interest at court, became so unfavourable to Barry’s views, that he determined to retire. His first intention was to return to Paris with the view of prosecuting his studies; but meeting with some difficulties in this, he proceeded to Lincoln, where William de Monte read lectures in theology with great applause. Here he spent about six years in the study of divinity, and in composing several works. At last the see of St David’s, which had long been the object of his ambition, became vacant, and brought him again upon the stage. He was unanimously elected by the chapter, but met with so powerful an adversary in Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, that it involved him in a litigation which lasted five years, cost him three journeys to Rome at a great expense, and ended in his defeat in the year 1203. Soon after this he retired from the world, and spent the last seventeen years of his life in a studious privacy, composing many books, of which a catalogue is given in the Biο∙ graphia Britannica. His manuscript pieces are preserved in the British Museum, the library at Lambeth, and the Bodleian Library. Of his published works, the best known is his Itinerary through Wales, of which a translation, illustrated with annotations, and accompanied with a life of the author, was published by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, in two splendid quarto volumes, in 1806.