Welsh Journals

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quibbles indeed. The book as a whole is a quite magnificent achievement, which will remain the basis of further study in the field for the foreseeable future-although, as Dr. Rowland points out, readers will still need to consult Sir Ifor Williams's Canu Llywarch Hen from time to time. The publishers have lavished due care upon it: the printing, binding and jacket design are all to be highly commended (the only misprint of any consequence which I have noticed is the transference of the last seven lines of p. 263 to be the last seven lines of p. 264). It is worth every penny of the alarmingly high price which is asked for it. R. GERAINT GRUFFYDD Aberystwyth ATLAS OF CISTERCIAN LANDS IN WALES. By David H. Williams. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1990. Pp. xv, 153; maps, plans and plates. £ 35.00. The Cistercians were the biggest ecclesiastical landowners in Wales. Sir John Lloyd estimated that benefactions to the order in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries doubled the amount of land under church control. William Rees gave some idea of the extent of these lands in his pioneering maps, South Wales and the Border in the Fourteenth Century (1933), and an impressionistic idea of their extent for the whole of Wales in his Historical Atlas of Wales (1951). A more precise delineation of their boundaries has long been needed to take account of the new work which has been done on the history of the order and of its individual abbeys in Wales since the earlier maps appeared. No one has done more to contribute to this growing fund of knowledge than the compiler of this atlas. During the past thirty years or so, Dr. Williams has scoured the primary and secondary sources for evidence of Cistercian activity in Wales. He has produced numerous articles on individual abbeys and in 1984 crowned his efforts with the publication of The Welsh Cistercians, which will surely remain for many years the definitive work on the order in Wales. The present atlas was planned partly as a necessary complement to the latter work and partly to answer the frequent enquiries which Dr. Williams received regarding the location of Cistercian lands in Wales. The atlas consists of four parts. The introduction examines the geographical and historical setting of the Cistercian order in a wide-ranging European survey, deals with the influence of the Cistercian order in Wales, and concludes with detailed notes on the maps, plans and plates. The inventory which follows lists the main properties of the Welsh houses and properties in Wales held by English houses, and provides a summary account of the economic resources of each house with a short note on major sources of reference. The properties, numbered consecutively from 1 to 212 with National Grid references, are conveniently plotted on a general map (Map 12). The bibliography, forming the third part of the work, is selective but extensive and includes works on European abbeys where significant research has been done as well as on Welsh houses. The fourth part is the raison d'être of the volume­the maps,