Welsh Journals

vital institution that linked individual cottagers. It is pointed out that these groups were peculiar to this area, and we are given here new and fascinating information about them. Working the land also saw farmers and agricultural wage-earners associated as members of the same farm staff, with the performance of different tasks carrying different levels of prestige. The author claims that indoor, unmarried servants performed tasks of higher prestige than did outdoor, unmarried labourers. Certainly, indoor servants worked with horses, which Mr. Jenkins claims was the most prestigious work, but they were equally concerned with caring with livestock, work of the lowest status. Moreover, it is questionable whether work with horses would carry higher prestige than other skilled work like hedging and thatching, work performed by more experienced married labourers. Again, the continuance until this period of the indoor servant class in Wales as a whole (in contrast to its disappearance in most of England early in the nineteenth century) and the peculiarity of the outdoor 'retained' labourer (deilad) to south Cardiganshire might have been drawn to our notice. The section on the ordering of social relationships based on ecology concludes with a valuable discussion of the family farm separated from its function as a unit of production. Here, the widely-held view of the many-generation 'family farm' is challenged by Mr. Jenkins's observations that the movement of a family between farms of different sizes was a vital means by which changes in composition and requirements of the family over time were accom- modated. The author claims that the individual was, above all, identified in the community as a member of a certain kin group. Kinship was especially important at times of trouble. It also facilitated family movements between different-sized farms, with the connivance of the landlords. This kind of landlord co-operation is important evidence in the debate still raging over the extent and character of a 'Welsh land problem'. The third dominant community relationship was based on chapel membership which reproduced the main divisions of society, with the exception of the Anglican, anglicized gentry. Relations between farmers and cottagers within each chapel reflected their wider social differences. On the other hand, those divided within a chapel were drawn together by inter-chapel and, more especially, inter-denominational rivalry, and by sectarian politics. In addition, the author provides an important analysis of the sociological impact of the Revival of 1904-5. This work ends with an examination of the forces which combined to transform the overall 'parochial' nature of this community. Migration brought contacts with the wider world, while membership of the multi- plying 'external organisations' like the educational and police systems necessitated local adaptation. Again, the impact of the corn reaper and binder was of importance in ending the 'potato work groups'. All these points, together with the decline of the political and socio-economic role of the gentry, receive balanced and scholarly treatment. Mr. Jenkins brings to his work not only new literary and oral evidence, but also a masterly and unpretentious application of sociological principles. He has