Welsh Journals

frenzy for chronological deflation in the field of art metalwork, leading to the strange statements that the 'Thames' group of dagger-sheaths (late Hallstatt or La Tene la in form) belongs to the middle of the third century B.C. and that the Ulster La Tène scabbards and that from Bugthorpe all belong to the first century B.C. All these criticisms may seem rather harsh, but it must, in conclusion, be conceded that this book will undoubtedly be received with gratitude by many archaeologists for the help it gives them with the literary sources. H. N. SAVORY National Museum of Wales, Cardiff EARLY BRITTANY. By Nora K. Chadwick. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1969. Pp. viii, 376, figs. 6, plates 20. £ 4. This volume is a most valuable addition to the important series of contributions that Dr. Nora Chadwick has made to the study of the early history and civilization of the Celtic peoples. The great range and depth of her scholarship have been plain for all to see for very many years. During the last two decades she has marshalled her vast knowledge in one challenging work of synthesis after another. Her zeal and industry are quite astonishing, especially as she has chosen to traverse more than once exceedingly treacherous ground. In this book we have an extension of Mrs. Chadwick's Sir John Rhys Memorial Lecture for 1965 which dealt with the immigration into Brittany from Celtic Britain. Here the author looks beyond the theme of that lecture to the history of Armorica prior to the colonization and to some of the permanent results of the occupation and settlement. But the hard core of the book lies in the account of the immigration and of the way an outlying and uneconomic part of Roman Gaul was transformed to become a country with very close cultural ties with Britain. It seems to me that the great merit of this book is that it succeeds in indicating on the one hand the continuity of tradition and the general conservatism and retardation of development in Brittany, and on the other hand the several changes in orientation that occurred from the early prehistoric period down to the world left by the Breton colonists. The author works systematically through an account of prehistoric and Gaulish Armorica, the Roman conquest and the barbarian invasions, the immigration with its British background, and the organization and character of the church. She ends with an excursus on the great enchanted forest of Brocéliande and its special position in the history of Brittany.