Journey 5
Gerald of Wales
Hay-on-Wye
Was Britain’s ‘book capital’ a seat of learning in Gerald’s day?
Gerald, a prodigious writer for his times, would have loved modern day Hay-on-Wye. It has more bookshops per square metre than anywhere else in the world.
But in the 1100s, he felt he lived in dark times, where study was “toppled deep in ruin”. He berates “a number of famous men” for showing “such contempt for literature that they are in the habit of immediately locking up in their cupboards the excellent works which I present to them”.
Hence the importance of oral communication – the purpose of Gerald’s journey.
At Hay, and every stop along the way, he and Baldwin preached aloud to crowds of locals, hoping to persuade them to ‘take the Cross’. Those who agreed wore a cloth cross on their shoulder, and waited for the call to fight for Christ in the crusades.