Welsh Journals

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Not least among the merits of this extremely useful (and for Wales even epoch-making) publication is the way in which, by fullness in indicating their sources of information, the contributors have eased the way for further enquiry. G. P. JONES. Grange-over-Sands. WALES THROUGH THE AGES, VOL. I: FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES to 1485. Edited by A. J. Roderick, Llandybie, 1959. Pp. 200. 25s. In this book twenty-two leading experts on Welsh history, archaeology, and literature have conspired to give us, in a brief 200 pages, a history of Wales to the end of the Middle Ages. Their twenty-four chapters were originally as many broadcast talks, and the decision to publish them, and the speed with which the decision has been put into effect, will be warmly welcomed by all who care about the early history of Wales and would wish to have a clear statement of current views upon it. The critics often tell us that collective histories are spineless and dull, and the medium for which this book was designed has dictated what might seem an exception- ally fragmented plan. It is a mosaic of short chapters, each complete in itself, with only a minimum of links joining neighbour to neighbour. But the effect is certainly not dull, nor so disjointed as one might have feared. All the authors are determined to tell their story simply and clearly; they are all scholars with deep knowledge of their subject; they are united by an enthusiasm for Wales and its past. This not uncritical enthusiasm has combined with the imperious demands of the B. B.C. to lend a measure of unity to the book. The basic framework is chronological. Dr. Glyn Daniel, Professor Grimes, and Mr. Donald Moore tell us what the spade has revealed of Prehistoric and Roman times; Mrs. Chadwick, Professor Glyn Roberts, and Professor William Rees take us to the coming of the Normans; Professor Idris Foster, Professor Jones Pierce, and the editor to the Edwardian conquest; chapters on 1284 (Glyn Roberts), fourteenth- century society (Jones Pierce), Owain Glyn Dwr (Gwyn A. Williams), and fifteenth-century politics (E. D. Jones) span the period between the Conquest and the battle of Bosworth; the conquest of England by the Tudor dynasty in 1485 is the theme of the concluding chapter, by Professor David Williams. Wales through the Ages is a work of haute vulgarisation; none the less, there are few chapters in which the expert as well as the general reader will not find hints and emphases of interest to him. Mrs. Chadwick's chapter, for instance, lends a notable lucidity to an obscure and dark period, and Professor Jones Pierce refreshes and also tantalises us with new learning about the fourteenth century. The later Middle Ages, indeed, is normally a very difficult period in Welsh history to understand, and its exposition here is notably successful. The tone of