Welsh Journals

and personal contributions he makes in his detailed studies of Valor Ecclesiasticus. What could have become tedious reading is made fascinating by so graphic a presentation of the statistical evidence that the attention of the reader should never waver. The whole of Part II indeed could be read on its own by teachers and pupils who are trying to cope with the early modern history of Wales. Questions to which, as students of the sixteenth century, they may so often have sought in vain for satisfying answers, are here for the first time convincingly answered. In fact throughout the book the advanced student will discover much illuminating generalization, soundly based on current scholarship, on aspects of Welsh history in the later Middle Ages which can with profit be read independently of the main theme. As a general guide to secular trends in Wales during this period-trends which reached their climax, as Professor Williams demonstrates in a powerful concluding chapter, in the sixteenth century-such sections will be found to have a usefulness far beyond their immediate context. But how long, one wonders, will it be before copies find their way into the libraries of every grammar school in Wales? But without question one of the most impressive features, and the one which gives the book its unique quality, is the expert evaluation and the use made of literary evidence. Included in each section are separate chapters on literature and clerical scholarship which for the first time, but always with an eye on the main historical theme, summarize the progress of Welsh studies in these fields-summaries which are seasoned with personal interpretations on which only a scholar trained in two disciplines could have ventured. But that is not all. Throughout the argument, and notably in Part II, the literary evidence, that of poetry in particular, is delicately woven into the narrative to supplement and illuminate other sources. This approach is brought to perfection in the chapter on 'Popular Religious Beliefs and Observances' which is as sensitive in its appraisements as that on architecture and art. At the close of this remarkable study, in which Professor Glanmor Williams has shown how in the context of research into Welsh history science can be transmuted into art, one broad question remains. What vestiges of the older pre-Norman Church remained after three centuries and more of relentless English and continental pressures ? Perhaps very few by 1530, although the discerning reader may detect some survivals in parts of the evidence cited in the later chapters. But in 1284 at least the pattern of that older church organization was plainly visible beneath the surface. In ignoring this factor in his introductory chapter, possibly as a result of regarding Peckham's strictures on the state of the northern dioceses in 1284, as exaggerated, one important thread is missing from the body of an otherwise wholly satisfying book. Aberystwyth. T. JONES PIERCE.