Welsh Journals

language identity, legal peculiarities, awareness of social customs hardening into matters of law, have, of course, still to be reckoned with; but within the turmoil of social and political change, Wendy Davies has given us much to think about. Fresh archaeological and numismatic evidence on the scale of the Bryn Maelgwyn hoard or (for a later period) the Wenallt hoard may yet further enrich the basic analysis. It is indeed curious that the period of Norman takeover in Wales took so long; and one of the reasons might well be found in the author's insistence on the poverty of existing administrative structures in Wales. One remembers that Domesday Book was a staggering achievement in the art of eleventh-century government-but that it applied effectively to shired England. Without established substructures of government conquest can rarely be more than ephemeral. HENRY LOYN St. Albans IRISH SOCIETY, ANGLO-NORMAN SETTLERS, ANGEVIN KINGSHIP: INTERACTIONS IN IRELAND IN THE LATE TWELFTH CENTURY. By Marie Therese Flanagan. Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. 350. £ 35.00 In the late twelfth century, events occurred which transformed the face of Ireland. Anglo-Norman settlers established themselves in the country and Henry II, king of England (and also duke of Normandy, count of Anjou and duke of Aquitaine) asserted political supremacy over it. The involvement of the 'English' in Ireland had begun. The consequences are still with us today. There are many questions, connected with these momentous years, which historians have debated. Did Henry II contemplate the conquest of Ireland in 1155 at the beginning of his reign? Why did Diarmait Mac Murchada, ousted king of Leinster, appeal to Henry II for help? Why subsequently, did he offer his daughter Aife, and with her the succession to his kingdom, to the great Anglo-Norman baron, Richard fitz Gilbert (Strongbow), the lord of Chepstow? What relationship did Henry II envisage with the native Irish kings and they with him? How did Henry see Ireland's future within the context of the Angevin empire? And, underlying much else, how different was Angevin 'feudal' kingship from that found in Ireland? All these questions and many others are discussed in Dr. Flanagan's learned book. If she takes a basic knowledge of the main events for granted, and concentrates instead on the detailed discussion of particular aspects, that is reasonable enough given that there are several general surveys of the period readily available. While .the book is based, as Dr. Flanagan says in her Introduction, on a re-examination of existing evidence, this has not precluded new discoveries, most notably a charter of the count of Eu which appears to prove conclusively that the conquest of Ireland was indeed discussed at the beginning of Henry's reign.