Welsh Journals

BOOK REVIEWS St Davids Episcopal Acta 1085-1280, edited by Julia Barrow [South Wales Record Society, Cardiff, 1998], xvii + 198 pp. ISBN: 0 9525961 3 X. Price £ 19.50 ( £ 14.50 to members of the South Wales Record Society), available from the Treasurer, South Wales Record Society, 12 The Green, Radyr, Cardiff CF4 8BR. This welcome edition of the acta of the bishops of St Davids makes available a fascinating collection of documents issued by and on behalf of the nine bishops who ruled the diocese for the two centuries following the Norman conquest of south Wales. The arrangement of the volume follows closely that of the series English Episcopal Actat to which the editor, Dr Barrow, has herself contributed VII: Hereford 1079-1234[1993]). The volume opens with admirable biographical sketches of the bishops, which provide essential background, not only of the men themselves, but of the political context for their activities. We move through the active pontificate of Bernard, first Norman bishop of St Davids, who transformed the church from a clas community to a chapter of canons, and nursed the ambition to see it raised to metropolitan status; to David Fitz Gerald, a family man whose relationship with the chapter was a rocky one; to Geoffrey of Henlaw, prior of Llanthony, whose appointment thwarted the ambitions of Gerald of Wales; to others of both English and Welsh extraction who have left their mark on the development of the see. In her diplomatic analysis of the charters the editor is able to make telling comparisons with the acta of other dioceses and the English Episcopal Acta series is now advanced enough for such comparisons to be made but particularly with the charters of Llandaff, edited by David Crouch for the South Wales Record Society in 1988. As both the Welsh collections extend well into the thirteenth century (unlike the English volumes) the ratio of surviving originals to copies is quite high, in the case of St Davids 28 originals out of 123 surviving texts. This allows for detailed analysis of the physical appearance as well as stylistic features of the acta. The total number of acta, including references to acta known to have been issued but for which no text survives, is 152. In addition an appendix contains three acta in which the bishop of St Davids issued with other churchmen,