Welsh Journals

influenced by inertia, indifference, ignorance, or fear to carry out their duties conscientiously. Not infrequently, they sheltered beneath the convenient catch-all formula, "omnia bene", when they can hardly have been unaware that all was far from well. But they were not the first, nor are they likely to be the last, to leave a wide gap between principle and practice in their belief and behaviour. A comparison of the Injunctions issued by Bishop Godwin for Llandaff in 1603 with the articles of Bishop Field for 1621 suggests that not a great deal had changed for the better within the diocese over the twenty years. Godwin had reason to complain of an undue fondness for games and worldly pursuits on Sundays, neglect of church buildings, fewness of sermons, failure to catechise, clandestine marriages, and other "heinous offences" "daily committed". Field in turn inquired concerning the regularity of catechising, the repair of buildings and the proper equipping of them, the profanation of Sundays with unlawful games and unrestrained tipplings, and the incidence of notorious sinners and excommunicates. What is fascinating about both sets of documents is how closely they resemble the characteristic criticisms voiced in contemporary Welsh literature, emanating from very different parts of the country. Robert Llwyd, vicar of Chirk, makes much of the same weaknesses in his introduction to his Welsh translation of Arthur Dent's Pathway to Heaven. In west Wales, Rhys Prichard, vicar of Llandovery and chancellor of St Davids, likewise drew attention to Sunday games, swearing, adultery, sozzling in taverns, and the like, as the sins which he would most want to see being given up in Wales. If the Welsh of this age fell into error, it was not for want of being duly warned and exhorted by their spiritual overseers. Alas! what proportion of that counsel fell on largely unhearing ears? Glanmor Williams Swansea R Brinley Jones, A LANTERNE TO THEIR FEETE: Remembering Rhys Prichard 1579-1644, Vicar of Llandovery [Llanwrda, The Drovers Press 1994]. 86pp, illus. pbk. £ 4.00. ISBN 0-9508903-5-9. Rhys Prichard [1579-1644] has a name and fame in Wales that can only be dependent on his writings. For apart from these, very little is known about him, save that he held a living for a very short time in Essex, that he became vicar of Llandovery in 1602, becoming chancellor and canon of St Davids Cathedral. An earlier book in Welsh by D Gwenallt Jones worried