Welsh Journals

revealed once again the problems and limitations of medieval political history, and of biography in particular. These problems and limitations will always be with us; but Dr. Maddicott has shown by his careful and imaginative sifting of the evidence how our understanding of the nature of medieval politics can, nevertheless, be greatly enhanced. That is why his book deserves to become a locus classicus in the study of medieval politics. R. R. DAVIES University College, London GEOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF HISTORICAL SOURCES: READINGS IN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY. Edited by Alan R. H. Baker, John D. Hampshere and John Langton. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1970. Pp. 453. £ 4.20. Historians and geographers alike have every reason to applaud the decision of Messrs David and Charles to publish a number of volumes in a new series entitled Studies in Historical Geography. This venture is all the more welcome because, as the editors of the present volume have pointed out, an unusually high proportion of significant studies in this branch of geography have in recent years been published in article rather than in book form. The titles of six books now in course of preparation have already been announced, and at least three of these should be of direct interest to Welsh historians. A. R. H. Baker's Historical Geography: an introduction, a work which should make possible an assessment of the achievements, possibilities and limitations of contemporary scholarship in this field, is likely to be one of the key volumes in the series, and Welsh evidence may well figure prominently in Celts, Saxons and Vikings: Studies in settlement continuity, by Glanville Jones and in The historical geography of rural settlement in Britain, by Brian K. Roberts. The work under review does not form part of the series, but is described by the publishers as an 'associated volume' illustrating 'the range of historical source materials that exists, the types of problem that these data present to geographical analysis, and some of the methods which have been employed to overcome these problems'. It contains a brief but perceptive introduction and twenty essays displaying some of the methods used by present-day historical geographers in exploiting source materials. That objectives as well as methods employed should vary widely is hardly surprising in view of the broad scope of this discipline, embracing as it does at least four elements-geographies of the past, changing landscapes, the past in the present, and geographical history. 1 See H. C. Darby's article entitled 'Historical Geography' in H. P. R. Finberg (ed.). Approaches to History: A Symposium (1962), pp. 127-56.