Welsh Journals

member of the Department of Manuscripts of the National Library of Wales, and reinforces the thesis offered by Griffith John Williams many years ago, that there was in Glamorgan in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries an active school of scribes and translators-three of the manuscripts have a Glamorgan provenance. Attention is also paid to the different manuscript versions of the French text and the editor sees the Welsh texts as representing versions of a single translation related to a particular recension of the French. None of the Welsh texts, however, contains a full version of the French text; B, C and D refer to fifteen animals as compared to the forty-six animals of the French original; the A fragment has nine, some of which do not correspond with the animals of B, C and D. If these texts contain versions of the same Welsh translation, the copyists or editors have modified and changed orthography, grammatical forms and even lexemes from version to version. The orthographical and grammatical conventions of all the manuscripts are listed, thus supplying valuable data for documenting the changes which came about in Welsh between 1400 and 1600 and that within the context of a single text. The variant versions also illustrate the freedom that scribes allowed themselves in adapting the wording of texts as they copied. Mr. Thomas might have allowed himself a little space in the Introduction to offer some synthesis of these matters, which are crucial to the evolution of both the Welsh language and its literary style. This is, however, a minor criticism of a volume which basically aims at presenting an edition of a text and this aspect of the work is fulfilled with vision and thoroughness. Not only has Mr. Thomas edited three copies of the Welsh text, A, B and C, but he has also prepared a version of the corresponding French passages. These, together with textual notes on the translator's art and a very full and lucid glossary, ensure that the volume is a valuable addition to the Dublin Institute's Medieval and Modern Welsh Series. MORFYDD E. OWEN Aberystwyth REPRESENTATIVE BODIES. By Thomas J. Prichard. Gomer Press, Llandysul, 1988. Pp. 213, map, 30 illustrations. £ 12.50. Canon Prichard has taken a range of upland territory in Glamorgan, centred on the ancient parish of Ystradyfodwg, and has tried with limited success to illustrate phases of the history of the church from the Dark Ages to the twentieth century. His book is based largely on two academic theses submitted for higher degrees, and he has sought to turn these technical studies into a popular history. The two genres do not mix. An involved and convoluted style, quite unlike his contribution to Rhondda Past and Future, makes for difficult rather than easy reading. The representative bodies of the title are local clerics of Llantrisant, Ystradyfodwg and Glyncorrwg. For the