In December 2019 Professor Richard Sharpe was awarded a 5 year Leverhulme Research Project to begin in April 2020 on Gerald of Wales with the aim of publishing authoritative editions of most of his works, following the example of Robert Bartlett's recent edition of De principis instructione.
Gerald of Wales (1146–1223) was a man with a busy career in church and court, whose prolific writings provide a vivid window on entangled Anglo-French, Anglo-Welsh, and Anglo-Irish interactions. Yet his works are currently mainly only accessible in the nineteenth-century Rolls Series without translations, which are of variable reliability, or in poor modern translations. This project will produce nine volumes of authoritative new editions with translation and commentary. These will be of huge value to historians, Celticists, and students of medieval Latin literature, and change how we think about Gerald and the world of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, as it will bring the person and his works into clearer focus and emphasise the importance of medieval Latin as a cross-disciplinary field.
Following Richard’s sudden death in March 2020 the project plans have been revised to ensure that the project will continue in Richard’s memory. Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards, Emeritus fellow and former Professor of Celtic at Jesus College here in Oxford, will take over as Principal Investigator with Professor Paul Russell, Professor of Celtic in Cambridge University's Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic department as Co-Investigator. Dr Jacob Currie is joining the Faculty to undertake the primary manuscript research, as well as the editing and translating of the texts.
We are making this very much a collaborative effort; Professors Robert Bartlett (St Andrews), Julia Barrow (Leeds), Marie-Therese Flanagan (Queen's Belfast), Huw Pryce (Bangor), and Dr Brian F. Golding (Southampton) have all kindly agreed to read material and make contributions in their fields of expertise.
