saw this, together with the interest of the subject matter and the warmth of the author's personality, as being the factors that made the Descriptio Cambriae and the Itinerarium Cambriae the most popular of Gerald's works.

James Dimock felt that the Descriptio benefits greatly from being written on a subject that could not, as several of his works did, evoke any of his prejudices or personal animosities. The result, he judged, could stand as a "very honourable comparison with any topographical attempt that had appeared up to his time,