Welsh Journals

most things in his book, his answer to it is affirmative, and if his book is incomplete it is because that affirmation arises, at least in part, from his being much less interested in behaviour than in conviction. To observe, for instance, that Charlemagne was one of the most vigorous legislators against sorcery without wondering why- even while mentioning that the legislation in question is to be found in the first Saxon capitulary, but not that it was promulgated to drive home the conquest of the Saxons by eradicating their religion and culture-is to set aside the entire issue of the social functions and purposes both of magical or allegedly magical practices and of attempts to repress them. The comment that 'it might have occurred to churchmen and secular authorities alike that all their legislation was doing little to curb the exercise of magic' (p. 180) begs the questions of why it did not occur to them, how they knew or formed their assessment of how much magic was being exercised, and whether curbing it was indeed the object of the legislation. Here it is a pity that Kieckhefer did not take more seriously some of the issues raised by the best of his recent predecessors, Edward Peters, in The Magician, the Witch and the Law (Philadelphia, 1977), which should be read, or reread, alongside him. But a small book cannot do everything. This one does a great deal, and does it extemely well: it will be an unusual medievalist, student or teacher, who does not learn a lot from it, and a very odd one indeed who does not enjoy the process. R. I. MOORE Sheffield EDWARD I. By Michael Prestwich. Methuen, London, 1988. Pp. 567. £ 25.00. The author tells us that twenty years ago he decided not to write this book, but a host of readers will be grateful that he ultimately agreed to undertake the task, for he was already exceptionally well equipped to embark upon this major biographical study and his earlier work informs and fortifies this important contribution. Conspicuous for its comprehensiveness and reliability, Professor Prestwich's chapter on the government of England, the legislation of the reign and the role of parliament are particularly valuable balanced assessments. The virtues of the author's heedful and low-key approach may, perhaps, be better appreciated by those who come to the volume with a fair grasp of the state of play in the field than by those who may take it as their first and main authority. On occasion the studiously judicious account, as careful in its consideration of earlier views as it is generous in its acknowledgement of their existence, does not quite reflect the vigour of earlier arguments and readers may miss some of the excitement which earlier investigation served to generate. The measured approach concurs with the author's estimate of Edward I himself, a practical man with no propensity to theoretical abstractions. Professor Prestwich is wary of doctrine, a caution evident, for instance, in his discussion of the critical years 1294-8. He respects J. G. Edward's arguments with regard to the 'full power' (plena potestas) ormula used in the writs of summons to parliament as a means of securing collective