Welsh Journals

verge on the esoteric, and might have been rendered more enlightening to the non-specialist by the addition of a glossary of Scots terms. Most of the contributors have aimed more at the general reader and provide fascinating introductions to their subjects: Norman Shead, for instance (text 26), on the development of the diocese of Glasgow, and D. E. R. Watt (text 22), on the development of diocesan organisation, are among the most successful. In all topical atlases of this kind, repetitive patterns fill the frame of the out-line maps, suggesting determinants which are not always shown: here the Great Glen marks off on page after page the area of feudalisation; the distribution pattern of mottes, thanages and burghs; the limits of royal authority. The Scottish atlas has much in it to interest students of Welsh history. There are reminders of a shared inheritance in the lost world of Urien of Rheged and the Gododdin. But it is the features of the Scottish past which were not shared which are most thought-provoking: the assimilation of foreign influences without the disaster of conquest; the rise of Edinburgh as a national capital; even the special prestige and wealth of the bishops of St. Andrews. These and many more topics are here dealt with in a way which puts us firmly in the debt of the Conference of Scottish Medievalists, whose brain-child this atlas is. GWILYM USHER Bangor THE BRITISH HEROIC AGE. By N. K. Chadwick. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1976. Pp. 125. £ 3.00. Mrs. Chadwick, who died in 1972, was a very distinguished scholar and a most gracious lady. The British Heroic Age appeared almost simul- taneously with the establishmant of the Nora Chadwick Readership in Celtic Studies as from 1 October 1976 at her University of Cambridge. It has become fashionable now among younger scholars-and others not so young-to dismiss Mrs. Chadwick's contribution to early British studies as a little eccentric and rather uncritical. In fact, she gave the critical inves- tigation of the sources of Dark Age history a new dimension. Her achieve- ment was very great. Unfortunately, this book is far from perfect. Part I, which focusses essentially on Roman Britain, and Part II on the Men of the North, do not complement each other satisfactorily, nor is the material always well presented. There are strange misprints. It is certainly out of date at the time of its eventual publication. Yet it will perhaps be valued by those who admired Mrs. Chadwick's work when she was at the height of her powers as perhaps the last manuscript from her pen; and its theme reminds us of what was, for her, an abiding passion in her life until her last days, Celtic history and the study of early Britain. D. P. KIRBY Aberystwyth