Welsh Journals

interesting and thought-provoking and will be worthy of note to all concerned with social systems and state formation in early Wales. NANCY EDWARDS Bangor CELTIC CHRISTIANITY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL WALES: THE ORIGINS OF THE WELSH SPIRITUAL Tradition. By Oliver Davies. University of Wales Press, Cardiff. 1996. Pp. xii, 193. £ 12.95. Oliver Davies's subject is 'spirituality', the elusive 'internal realities' of religion. For early medieval Wales his evidence has to come from literature. His book is a setting in context and an interpretation of a selection of the literary survivals. His conclusion is that there exists a 'Celtic' distinctiveness, and, within that, a Welsh one. Spirituality is a subject which historians and literary scholars are likely to skirt, with polite acknowledgement. Oliver Davies, whose earlier work includes several studies of German mystics, comes to these Welsh writings from an unusual direction. He brings a weight of scholarship to his study: his aim, however, is to liberate these medieval texts 'from the narrow confines of clinical scholarship into the spaciousness and vitality of contemporary life and action', into living Christianity. His book is a lively one. In many a Christian and many a Celt, it will probably evoke an enthusiastic response. Historians may balk at some of the conclusions and shake their heads at the footings of some of the arguments, and they may notice here and there a datedness of reference (Chadwick and J.E. Lloyd but not Lapidge on Sulien's family, Plummer but not Sharpe on Irish Vitae), but they will find plenty of food for thought. The literary survivals on which Oliver Davies chooses to focus are those which 'support the emergence of a distinctively Welsh tradition'; the Vitae of SS Samson, Beuno and David; some of the religious poetry from the Black Book of Carmarthen and the Book of Taliesin; six poems by the Poets of the princes; and the mystical prose text Ymborth yr Enaid ('the Food of the Soul'). These texts range in date from the tenth to the thirteenth century (some of the poetry could be earlier). Admirably, all poems discussed are given in full, in the author's own translations based on the best available editions (he was too early for Cyfres Beirdd y Tywysogion); unaccountably for the Black Book poetry he uses, but fails to give reference to, the most thoughtful and helpful edition, Marged Haycock's Blodeu- gerdd Barddas o Ganu Crefyddol Cynnar. Readers interested in the Welsh,