Welsh Journals

should produce: its subject was well chosen and defined, its contributions carefully contrived to reveal salient features. If a reliable definition of a town still eludes us, this report certainly brings us nearer to an understand- ing of why and how the medieval town developed. RALPH A. GRIFFITHS Swansea CALENDAR OF ANCIENT PETITIONS RELATING TO WALES. Edited by William Rees. Board of Celtic Studies, History and Law Series, No. 28. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1975. Pp. xxxviii, 559. £ 8.00. This edition not only furthers the cause of Welsh history, to which Professor Rees has devoted his career, but that of English constitutional and social history between the late-thirteenth and fifteenth centuries as well. The documents, many endorsed, reveal the application to Wales of the petitionary system which became institutionalized under Edward I and his successors as an alternative to the ordinary judicial process of the courts. At the same time, these documents provide choice examples of conditions in Wales following the Edwardian conquest which prompted increasing numbers of petitions--claims for redress from abused native Welsh; attacks upon English colonists; pleas for compensation by royal officials, as well as complaints against them; and charmingly candid petitions for royal patronage. There is a wealth of material about Marcher Lords such as the Mortimers, the Bohuns, and the Despensers, who alone were a major source of petitions. The lord of Welshpool's alleged denial of visitation rights to a Cistercian commissary with an 'I am Pope; I am King, and Bishop and Abbot in my land' is a succinct distillation of broadly claimed Marcher immunitas. Feudal matters such as seisin, inheritance, wardship and marriage also receive attention. There are also many details about conditions in Wales affecting burgesses and merchants. The editor has enhanced his documentary collection by painstaking explanatory notes and by a concise introduction tracing the development of the petitionary system. His sensible translation of the petitions into English should enlarge their audience. Typographical mistakes appear very infrequently in his carefully-prepared text. However, the absence of a topical index makes the collection less easy to mine for specific subjects. Publication of the petitions in the sequence in which they appear in the Public Record Office holdings detracts from this work's potential usability. Contrary to the editor's denial (p. vii), listing of petitions by date, however broadly computed, would have been desirable, for it would have enabled readers at least to appreciate the relevance of the evidence about conditions during various reigns. Such an order would not have necessitated abandoning the petitions' archival reference numbers which the editor sought to preserve. Nevertheless, Professor Rees's accomplished editorial work allows students of medieval Wales and England to enjoy a diamond jubilee (indicated by his own dedication) with him. ROBERT B. PATTERSON Columbia, South Carolina