Welsh Journals

Hastings. The plans and sections, all specially redrawn for this volume, are less satisfactory. For one thing, they all lack a metre scale. Some, moreover, are incomplete (e.g., Flint, which lacks the castle's outer ward, and Beaumaris, which lacks its dock and surrounding wet moat); others are many years out of date (e.g., Rhuddlan and Skenfrith); while others again (e.g., Kenilworth, in regard to the treatment of the chapels in the inner and outer wards, and Rhuddlan, where there was never a 'weir' in the position indicated) are manifestly inaccurate. All, however, are neatly and tidily executed and no doubt adequately serve the book's immediate purpose. Dr. Douglas Simpson's contribution to castle studies was wide-ranging, penetrating and sometimes provocative. He almost 'lived' castles, and his work, as happily he well knew, was an inspiration to others. As one would rather suspect, and as indeed he tells us in his introductory note, the responsibility for making this further addition to the many recent books on the subject lay not with him but with his publishers. Much of its material is already enshrined in articles and papers contributed over many years to a variety of learned journals, and the particular merit of this attractively produced volume is that it makes the quintessence of Simpson's life-work readily available to the general reader. A. J. TAYLOR London. GLAMORGAN COUNTY HISTORY. VOL. III. THE MIDDLE AGES: THE MARCHER LORDSHIPS OF GLAMORGAN AND MORGANNWG AND GOWER AND KILVEY FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE ACT OF UNION OF ENGLAND AND WALES. Edited by T. B. Pugh. Cardiff, University of Wales Press for the Glamorgan County History Committee, 1971. Pp. xix, 704, with 6 maps and 33 plates. £ 12. This is in every sense a sumptuous volume. It is beautifully printed, handsomely bound, and furnished at the end with a set of splendid photographs illustrating chiefly chapters VIII (Ecclesiastical Architecture), IX (Castles) and X (Literary Tradition). Also at the end are a hundred pages of references in double column, which strictly speaking should have been printed as footnotes. This arrangement is undoubtedly a gain aesthetically, but it suggests (however unfairly) that the book is not directed primarily at the scholar or the interested and active historian, amateur or professional, but rather at a much vaguer public. It would be a pity if this impression were to gain wide acceptance, because the con- tributors have fairly let themselves go in the notes, and many of the entries may be read with pleasure as essays in their own right. Moreover, the main chapters, despite the long time this volume has been on the stocks, have a fresh and stimulating approach suggestive of scholarly research in active progress. Glamorgan, despite the severe social and economic problems from which it has suffered through its dependence on coal mining and other heavy industry, is historically a rich county, favoured by geography and climate, an abundance of natural resources, and an astonishing variety of landscape