Welsh Journals

zealous and successful diocesan bishop, but the critical years 1163-70 were the years to make or break his reputation. That he became the archbishop's principal opponent was partly a matter of temperament, partly accident. His enemies averred that he was ambitious to be arch- bishop himself. His greatest problem was that the initiative was never in his hands. Throughout the struggle he was fighting a defensive action, however much he might appear to be taking the offensive. The authors speak of Foliot's organising appeal after appeal to the pope to stave off Becket's censures; during the long struggle Foliot had not only to uphold the royalist position but to safeguard himself in law. He was, so far as we can see, more intemperate in language during these years than at any other period of his life, and certainly he exploited every claim which he could make as bishop of London in order to weaken the archbishop's position. The controversy engendered great bitterness and none of the leading participants emerged unscathed. Foliot was a man of considerable ability and singular charm, but in the fight with Becket his ability was overtaxed, and charm had no place. Dom Adrian and Professor Brooke are kinder in their assessment of Foliot than has been usual in the past. They record as a final verdict an impression, not of a man of 'excessive prudence nor of violent temper', but of 'a man aware of his own notable talents, not unself-critical, but without the imagination ever wholly to avoid the conflicting prejudices of his age: of a man, neither great nor bad, conscientiously striving in a practical way to set in operation what he thought was right in many difficult and complex situations'. Gilbert Foliot and his Letters whets the appetite for the new edition of the Letters. It is a fine piece of work, thoughtful and challenging, and, in its own right, an important con- tribution to the study of church and state in England, and of many facets of ecclesiastical and intellectual life in the twelfth century. DAVID WALKER Swansea THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE DIOCESE OF WORCESTER IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. By R. M. Haines. S.P.C.K., London, 1965. Pp. xviii + 393. 63s. The early years of the fourteenth century seem to have been years of transition in most English and Welsh sees, and the diocese of Worcester is no exception. In this extremely detailed study Dr. Haines traces some of the characteristics and some of the effects in a period which saw the initiative in diocesan administration pass from the archdeacon and the rural dean to the bishop's central administration. Characteristic were absenteeism among archdeacons (with the consequent development of the office of archdeacon's official) and apparently a gradual limitation of the activities of rural deans. In place of these local officers there grew up