Welsh Journals

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achievement of this remarkable book. It deserves to be widely read and discussed. Alun Gwynedd Jones William Gibson [editor], Religion and Society in England and Wales 1689-1800 [Leicester University Press, London and Washington, 1998]. xi + 241 pages. ISBN 0-7185-0162-4 (hardback), 0-7185-0163- 2 (paperback). Price £ 69.95 hardback, £ 17.99 paperback. This book, edited by a member of our Society, is part of a series published by Leicester University Press entitled Documents in Early Modern Social History. In his preface Bill Gibson states that this book was suggested by the publication of a similar source-book in the same series, Religion and Society in Early Modem England. Similarly, he makes plain that he has neither attempted to produce a comprehensive sourcebook, nor to edit sources which are readily available elsewhere. Instead, Gibson offers what he describes as a "broad view of religion and society in the period", and so includes sections on Nonconformity (including Methodism) and Roman Catholicism. Equally, he has endeavoured to include sources which offer a philosophical or theological interpretation of events and movements, such as an extract from Locke's A Letter concerning Toleration relating to the consequences of the revolution of 1689, or material from Hoadly, Law, Warburton and Paley regarding the Bangorian controversy and its aftermath. Narrative sources are included, as are those formal documents which reflected or encouraged change, including the Toleration Act and the Catholic Relief Act of 1778. Included within Gibson's selection are many well-known extracts. Bishop Burnet's account of the revolution of 1689 or John Wesley's description of his conversion obviously come into this category. But many other extracts are from sources that would be unfamiliar to many reasonably informed readers, such as Bishop Edmund Gibson's proposals for church reform, or the three accounts of the views of foreigners on English religion. And a significant number of extracts come from previously unpublished manuscript material. It may well be the case that the majority of extracts relating to Wales will come into this category of "unfamiliar" material for "English" readers. These include accounts of the work of SPCK in Wales during 1700, Erasmus Saunders' view of the Church in Wales, material from the Trevecca Letters relating to John Gambold and Howell Harris, and extracts from the diaries of William Bulkeley of Anglesey regarding the state of the clergy in that county. Bishop Barrington of Llandaffs sympathy to dissent is also recorded, as is his successor, Bishop Watson's, desire for the reform of the Church. A Welsh funeral wake, from an obscure source, is also included. The book is neatly divided into sections which relate both the "official"