Welsh Journals

The comparative material from other dioceses which Dr. Haines has amassed in both text and footnotes tends to emphasise the individuality of administrative practice in English sees. The fact that such material must necessarily be selective somewhat minimises its usefulness. Further, Dr. Haines is only dealing with a comparatively short period of time. A longer period might have given a better focus and a better balance to a book which, at times, tends to give undue weight to detail at the expense of clarity. R. W. DUNNING London OWEN GLENDOWER. By Glanmor Williams. Oxford University Press, 1966. Pp. 63. 9s. 6d., limp cloth 5s. Professor Glanmor Williams contributes to the Clarendon Biographies an attractive, illustrated volume, admirably suited in content and presenta- tion to the young readers for whom the series is primarily intended. The opening chapter provides a concise and judicious account of Wales before Glyndwr. Upon occasion, the compression forced upon the author inevitably produces statements which might be qualified if the treatment were more extended. The view that in the period after the conquest 'Welsh literature flourished as it has rarely done before or since' might be modified to ensure that the dearth of poetry of the first fifty years under English governance is appreciated. The attitude of society to English law might be more closely examined. Welshmen can certainly be shown to have resented change, but the evidence from Gwynedd tells that, in important respects, the response was quite the contrary. There, within a few decades of the conquest, the community endeavoured to be emancipated from some of the provisions of Welsh land law and sought the common law of England, but with no success. It was a question which was of particular concern to the uchelwyr, and the author, in considering the background to the rebellion, rightly draws attention to the attitudes of men of this social group. He notes, on three occasions, certain tenden- cies perceptible 'in the last quarter of the fourteenth century'. He has already written with authority on the predicament of the uchelwyr who entered the church. With regard to laymen, he detects 'a growing tendency to cut them out from holding important positions in the Principality and the March'. In Gwynedd a restiveness is noticeable among the uchelwyr in the middle years of the century and slightly later. But, during the last two decades of the century, members of one crucially important family enjoyed the benefits of the king's confidence. The change is securely documented by the poet Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd and in the public records. Goronwy ap Tudur, colovyn Kymry ae hymgeledd, is a person to whom the king entrusted the keeping of Beaumaris castle. Service in the king's forces had expiated the estrangements of an earlier period. These reconciliations are one of the features of the poetry of the