Welsh Journals

LIVES OF THE WELSH SAINTS. By G. H. Doble, edited by D. Simon Evans. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1971. Pp. 248. £ 4.00. Following the re-editing, still in progress, of Canon Doble's Lives of Cornish saints, this attractive volume of Doble's studies of the Lives of those British saints whose activities generally belong entirely to Wales, now undertaken by Mr. D. Simon Evans, Head of the Department of Celtic Studies at the University of Liverpool, is most acceptable. Doble's work, which remains of value, on Dubricius, Iltut, Paulinus, Teilo and Oudoceus is reproduced with few changes or emendations, but more recent studies are indicated by the editor in his introduction and footnotes. Mr. Simon Evans has indeed equipped his introduction with a rich quarry of references, although it must be said that it is becoming essential in this field now that scholars, citing a number of conflicting view-points in footnotes, should make it quite clear where conflict is occurring and explain why one authority in particular is being accepted and an opposing argument ignored. And a number of statements made in the introduction undoubtedly require some qualification. Alfred, king of Wessex, did not die in 901 (p. 7), of course, and a number of dates from the early period of the Anglo-Saxon Conquest are debatable. Bede's apparent 'anti- Welsh bias' (p. 6) really involves a difficult problem of source criticism, as Mrs. Chadwick has shown. It seems to be going a little far to assume that Cunedda was 'indeed a Christian who may have been instrumental in propagating the faith' (p. 36) simply because some of his descendants were subsequently venerated as saints, while at the same time (following Mrs. Chadwick) accepting the whole story of Cunedda and his sons as a legendary 'origin' story (p. 39). It is not clear what evidence there is to connect Ambrosius Aurelianus with Gloucester (p. 27); and can we really accept the central connection of Germanus (? of Auxerre) with Vortigern (p. 3) or with Dyfrig and Illtud (p. 42)? Here, inevitably, we reach the crux of the problem. The fundamental difficulty facing Mr. Simon Evans was undoubtedly whether to write mostly about the fifth and sixth centuries or about the eleventh and twelfth, because saints' Lives from the later period do not necessarily bear on the earlier. Doble accepted the Lives as late compilations which required literary criticism (such as the Lives of Cadoc and David in particular have now received) rather than historical analysis, though he nevertheless hoped that some valuable historical information, however slight, would be obtained about the Church and people in Celtic countries in the early- middle ages. If we interpret the early-middle ages to mean the period c. 400-1100 rather than the more chronologically limited Dark Ages or 'age of the saints' there may well be something in this hope. Although Mr. Simon Evans also affirms that these Lives are 'in no sense historical'