In Wales, Henry used the Church for political ends, and ruled the country by means of its Norman bishops. The consequence of this policy was, that the bishops were worldly and greedy men, and were hated by the natives, the clergy were ignorant and debased, and the people resisted the claims of the Church. Gerald de Barri, archdeacon of Brecknock, a young man of a noble Norman house, though on his mother's side of the blood-royal of Wales, was appointed by Archbishop Richard as his commissioner to reform the abuses of the Church. He was brave and energetic, very learned and very witty, and most of his books, and especially his "Topography of Ireland" and his "Ecclesiastical Jewel," are delightful reading. While effecting many reforms in the Welsh Church, he seems to have excited the clergy to attempt to gain metropolitan rank for the see of St. David's. This would have been wholly contrary to Henry's policy, for it would have given the Welsh a national leader, and he refused their request. Gerald spent many years of his life, partly in the pursuit of this object, and partly in trying to procure his confirmation as bishop of St. David's. He was twice elected to the bishopric, once in the reign of Henry, and again at the accession of John; he laid his case before Innocent III., and engaged in a long suit at the papal court. St. David's, however, never became a metropolitan see, and he never became its bishop.
Among the causes that magnified the papal power here and elsewhere must be reckoned the crusades. The Pope alone could release from their vow those who had taken the cross; he became, in a certain sense, the director of the military force of Christendom, and he gained a new claim to interfere in the mutual relations of states. England took little part in the first two crusades, though in Stephen's time our seaport towns joined in a naval crusade of burghers and seamen, who took Lisbon from the Moors. In 1185 the patriarch of Jerusalem urged Henry to come to the help of the Holy city. Two or three barons went to the war, and the king thought of going in person, for he was the head of the Angevin house, to which the kings of Jerusalem belonged. He did not do so, for the same reason which, it is alleged, kept the Confessor from making his proposed pilgrimage. A great council, evidently mainly ecclesiastical in character, reminded him of his coronation oath, and told him that it was his duty to stay and look after the interests of his own kingdom. Two years later Christendom was startled by the news of the fall of Jerusalem. Henry, his son Richard, and many nobles took the cross, and Archbishop Baldwin, accompanied by Gerald de Barri, preached the crusade in Wales, and gained a vast number of recruits. Henry died before he could perform his vow, and Richard immediately began to prepare for his expedition. It was important alike for the good of the kingdom and for his own success that he should decide who should go with him, and accordingly he obtained leave from Clement III. to dispense with crusading vows for money. Before he sailed he sold all the lands, jurisdictions, and offices he could find purchasers for.