Welsh Journals

the complexities of medieval Wales. In 1970 a colloquium on fifteenth- century England was held in Cardiff and the papers delivered there were subsequently published. This was the first of a series of such gatherings, the outcome of most of which has been a collection of published papers, many by young scholars, under the imprint of Alan Sutton; these have added considerably to our understanding of a period which had long been unfashionable. The Cardiff proceedings, originally published in 1972 by the Manchester University Press, have now been reprinted, again with an introduction by Professor Griffiths which discusses subsequent work by the contributors, although three of them, S. B. Chrimes, C. D. Ross and B. P. Wolffe are, unhappily, no longer with us. It is a particularly interesting exercise to read Professor Griffiths's paper on 'Wales and the Marches' in Fifteenth Century England side by side with Wales and the Wars of the Roses; this is the first general discussion of fifteenth- century Wales since 1915 and, while it reflects the advance of scholarship, it also reinforces the point made earlier in this review that H. T. Evans had prepared the way eighty years ago. In her review of the first edition in this journal in 1973 (ante, vii, 241-42), Dr Llinos Beverley Smith hoped 'that this volume will prove to have been a splendid beginning of a series of similar studies by which the real character of the fifteenth century will be revealed'. That hope is certainly on the way to fulfilment. A. D. CARR Bangor Law AND DISORDER IN TUDOR Monmouthshire. By Ben Howell. Merton Priory Press, Cardiff, 1995. Pp.cviii, 100. £ 14.95. This is in effect two books in one. The first is an essay on Monmouthshire in the sixteenth century. After a brief look at medieval Gwent and at the creation of the new shire, with the oddness of the allocation of Monmouth to the 'Oxford' judicial circuit rather than to the Welsh 'Great Sessions', Ben Howell describes the system of administration for the rest of the century. This takes the form of a description of local government in general terms, with Monmouth examples as local colouring. The second part is a calendar (in fact well-nigh a transcript) of the quarter-session records for March 1576 to July 1577, from the manuscript roll Tredegar 149 at the National Library of Wales. The roll is unusual in that included with the quarter-session records are those for gaol delivery at Monmouth in February and July 1577; that is, of criminal jurisdiction by the assize judges sitting with the JPs. It is