Welsh Journals

affirm the Lacy connexion with its origins. Jeremy Knight considers some Marshal and de Burgh enterprises in tracing innovative features in early thirteenth-century building, while Peter Webster brings the first-fruits of the excavations at Dryslwyn. Arnold Taylor prints the account for the first three and half years' work at Beaumaris, with three informative tables of expenditure and in a brief commentary shows that, in the absence of comparably full accounts for the early stages of building at the other great castles of Edward I, the Beaumaris account provides a particularly valuable indication of how much could be accomplished in the opening seasons of an intensive building programme. Lawrence Butler has nothing comparable to aid him in interpreting the slight remains at Holt but he makes good use of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century surveys and argues strongly that the castle owes its conception to the period, and probably the person, of John de Warenne (d. 1306), the seventh earl of Surrey, and the search for affinities leads both to the royal castles of Wales and to Warenne's other castles elsewhere. Richard Avent, J. R. Kenyon, J. M. Lewis and Glanmor Williams examine architectural features and historical events of a later period at Laugharne, Raglan and Oxwich, and M. W. Thompson, taking Leland as a main reference point and the Civil War as a crucial phase, traces the abandonment of the castles and identifies the exceptions which were subject to extensive reconstruction. reconstruction. Appropriately enough, two contributors reflect upon the significance of earlier investigations and the methods by which new advances may be facilitated. Returning to the site for his major excavations at Hen Domen, Philip Baker ponders upon the scarcity of the evidence for the quality of life of those who lived there and remarks on the striking contrast with the much richer remains from the new castle at Montgomery. Leslie Alcock considers the limitations of radio-carbon dating with regard to the chronology of medieval castle-building, the greater promise of tree-ring dating, and the possibility of combining the two in a high-precision calibration; he stresses the relevance of environmental and biological studies, and his argument for new ventures in experimental archaeology will surely win a general endorsement tempered only by the realisation that financial constraints may place severe restrictions upon new enterprises in that direction. The impressive list of published writings of the scholar to whom this handsome volume is presented leads up to the Castellarium Anglicanum of 1983, but happily the list is extended to reflect the later contributions of a most vigorous and inspiring exponent of castles studies. J. B. SMITH Aberystwyth DAFYDD AP GWILYM AND THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT. By Helen Fulton. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1989. Pp. xiv, 274. £ 24.00. This is an important book for several reasons. In the first place, it represents the first substantial fruits of Australian Welsh scholarship, and as such augurs extremely well