Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

precinct of Tintem abbey'. Medieval Archaeology, 33 [1989] 99-143; cf. P. Courtney, 'A non-ferrous industrial complex at Tintem abbey', Journal History of Metallurgy, 16 [1982], 22-23). A few points call for comment. In Map 2 (Cistercian sites in Wales two possible sites are given for Trefgam, the earliest settlement of the Whitland monks: one north of Haverfordwest, the other adjacent to Whitland's grange at Blaengwyddno. Sir John Lloyd convincingly argued for Little Trefgam, north of Haverfordwest (History of Wales, II, 594 n. 101) and has more recently been supported by Francis Jones ('Trefgam Owen', Arch. Camb., 1961, pp. 113-14). In his bibliography Dr. Williams might have included David Thomson's 'Cistercians and schools in late medieval Wales', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, no. 3 (1982), 76-81, and Derrick Pratt, The Dissolution of Valle Crucis Abbey (Shrewsbury, 1982). George B. Hammond, 'Chapel of St. Margaret, Coed Franck: notes on the excavations', Royal Institution of South Wales, Report of the Council, 1925-26, pp. 27-30, and E. G. Smith, 'S. Margaret's chapel', Neath Antiquarian Society Trans., 2nd ser., 2 (1931-32), 29-31, should have been cited in preference to the work by M. R. Jones. These are suggestions rather than corrections. This is a magnificent reference work which should find an honoured place on the shelves of those interested in the economic life of medieval Wales. Skilfully planned and beautifully produced, it will stimulate ideas, encourage fieldwork and provide pointers to areas where further research may prove fruitful. F. G. COWLEY Swansea ENGLISH POLITICS IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. By Michael Prestwich. British History in Perspective, Macmillan, London, 1990. Pp. vi, 177. £ 25.00 hardback; £ 6.99 paper. This lucid and informative book is another product of the recent resurgence of scholarly interest in thirteenth-century England. In it, Professor Prestwich examines the structure and operation of politics between Magna Carta and the Ordinances of 1311, the age when they became undeniably English for the first time since 1066. After a brief chronological introduction, he looks first at the participants in politics seen against a background of fundamental change in the political system brought about by economic processes and the decline of tenurial feudalism. He emphasizes the limitations, as well as the power and authority of the kings, and the degree to which their personalities and policies conditioned the politics of their reigns. For the most part the aristocracy, the leaders of political society, are presented in a favourable light. Although their political attitudes owed much to family alliances, personal likes and dislikes, and the demands of patronage and retaining, the influence on them of political ideas, especially different views of the nature of royal authority, must not be