Welsh Journals

"Bishops, Priests and Deacons may marry at their own discretion as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness." In his study of the place-names afforded by the charters, the editor's expertise in three languages, Welsh, English and Latin, has enabled him to avoid potential pitfalls which, as he notes, have somewhat diminished earlier endeavours in this field of research. One place-name of interest, revealed in Charter 36 as lying on the boundary of the abbey's home estate, was Fontem Tessiliau. 'Tysilio's Well'. Recorded by the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales and by Major Francis Jones in his authoritative book on Holy Wells in Wales, as "Tysilio's Spout", it stood adjacent to the present Spout Farm (NGR: 238097) near Welshpool. It is the charter evidence that tells us of its antiquity. In this, as in much else, Graham Thomas leaves us in his debt for a work of great scholarship. David H Williams Borth, Aberystwyth Glanmor Williams, Wales and the Reformation [University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1997]. xii + 440 pp. ISBN: 0 7083 1414 5. Price £ 25.00. The unifying theme of this splendid volume by the doyen of Welsh historians is the reconstruction, refinement and liberation of national consciousness in Wales as a result of the multifarious forces of the Reformation. Other countries England, Scotland, Holland, Switzerland, for example benefited by the enhancement of their nationhood wrought by political and religious upheavals during three- quarters of a century c. 1520-1603, and these histories are well documented. In spite of more than four centuries of historiography of the Reformation here in Wales, however, this is the first full-length study of the subject, the culmination of lifelong study. At the very outset, an explanation is given of the hypothesis concerning the pre-existence of a Protestant church in Wales. The supposed presence of this primordial ecclesiastical body, independent of papal authority and founded on evangelical and scriptural doctrine, was responsible for shaping the awareness of the Welsh as a providentially favoured, separate, superior religious and cultural entity probably no later than the fifth or sixth century. That this hypothesis was given credence, and used as a missionary tool by the leading reformers in Wales was brilliantly expounded by Saunders Lewis in 1947. Lewis bestowed much of the credit for its resurrection on William Salesbury and concluded that its propagation was an attempt to offset the calamitous affects on national consciousness of the Act of Union 1536-43. Professor Williams is more inclined to favour the inestimably valuable contribution of Richard Davies, who, he notes, succeeded in vigorously vaunting this reconstruction of Welsh history to his own