Welsh Journals

see how his successors treat the turmoil and torments of the succeeding age, when the emergence of a powerful native principality groping towards feudal recognition brought situations reminiscent of the continental Hohenstaufen patterns into the constitutional picture. Dr. Walker divides his material into two principal sections, the one basically narrative and the second essentially interpretative, each contain- ing three chapters. He starts with a brief account of the political situation before the Normans came, moving to a discussion of the big names of the first generation (with good personal material on the Earls, Hugh Lupus, the Montgomeries and the Fitzosberns, notably from Ordericus Vitalis), and he then moves to an account of the more intense settlement of the south, with the Fitzhamons, Neufmarches and Clares in Brycheiniog, Morgannwg and Pembrokeshire. His interpretative section contains a chapter on the agrarian background (one would like a longer and deeper discussion here of topics such as the introduction of manorial organisation and the importance of the extended kin), with up-to-date and informative notes on the castles and boroughs. Chapter V is, in many ways, the key to the whole book, for Dr. Walker focuses attention here on the central question of integration or coexistence. He concludes that the introduction of Norman settlers in fact 'deepened the divisions in Welsh society' (p. 81), adding another dimension-that of race-to the problem. He says that in church affairs the gradual transformation of the secular church, and dramatic developments in the monastic church, helped to bring about a much more complex and vital religious life. Two characteristics emerge consistently from this short study. First and foremost, Dr. Walker is always careful to remind us of the fluidity of the situation: there is no predetermined course for him, leading towards independence or complete subjugation in the secular or in the ecclesiastical field. Indeed, with all his emphasis on ecclesiastical change, for example, he still stresses that the new pattern could not be said to be likely to destroy traditions of indepen- dence (p. 95); and will properly and cautiously not go further than that. Dr. Walker is also deeply anxious to relate evidence directly to the human problems he is grappling with. In his conclusion he reminds us that the Normans and the Welsh were in fact closer to each other in temperament than our normal stereotypes would allow. It is a rough, sometimes brutal, half-formed frontier world that Dr. Walker paints for us and its story is often, as he says, not edifying, nor is it 'marked by high ideals and clear statesmanship' (p. 98). H.R.LOYN Westfield College, London GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS: Speculum DUORUM or A Mirror of Two Men, preserved in the Vatican Library in Rome Cod. Reg. Lat. 470. Edited by Yves Lefevre and R. B. C. Huygens. English translation by Brian Dawson. General Editor Michael Richter. Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales, History and Law Series no. 27. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1974. £ 6.00.