Welsh Journals

from Caerleon through Llandaff to the west provides a strong foundation for accepting as authentic the traditions which invest the site with Dark Age Christian associations. And the point becomes even more significant when related to Professor Bowen's thesis-that the Teilo cult was diffused along the Roman road from Pembrokeshire. The distribution pattern shows quite clearly that there are Teilo churches to the west and to the east of Llandaff. It does not seem at all surprising that we should find mid-way between these two clusters of Teilo churches and, significantly, on the same road, a church of Teilo and a Ffynnon Deilo at Llandaff, while there is another Ffynnon Deilo near Pendoylan, some six miles away to the west. The reasons here adduced for the original choice of the site and for its probable early Christian associations provide, indeed, an instructive example of the way the science of geology can make important contributions towards a deeper understanding of other branches of learning. Dr. North is to be congratulated on producing a scholarly and well- written account which will long remain the authoritative work on the subject. Students of early Welsh ecclesiastical history will owe him a lasting debt of gratitude. CERI W. LEWIS. THE WELSH SAINTS 1640-1660, by GEOFFREY F. Nuttall. University of Wales Press, 1957. Price 1os. 6d. This is not a work of hagiography. The "saints" Dr. Nuttall considers in a short but perceptive study are three remarkable leaders of Welsh puritanism in its formative stages. They are the magnetic preacher, Walter Cradock, one-time curate of St. Mary's in Cardiff; the irrepressible millenarian, Vavasor Powell, and "gentle" Morgan Llwyd, as much a poet as a propa- gandist. Fresh light is thrown on their backgrounds, and the value of Dr. Nuttall's estimate of their achievement is enhanced by his profound knowledge of contemporary English movements, notably Quakerism. These men were certainly creative workers and they deserve to be better known outside, and even inside, Wales. But it is a pity that in honouring them Dr. Nuttall has chosen to make but passing reference to a man some might regard as their peer-William Erbury, Vicar in the sixteen-thirties of St. Mary's, Cardiff, a courageous anti-Laudian, and certainly one of the prime begetters of puritan converts in Wales. Perhaps Dr. Nuttall's three were men of finer calibre, mentally and spiritually, but each also owed something to Erbury, and we may regret that a lack of sympathy for Erbury's unrestrained personality-on at least one occasion his "Welsh blood boiled" -has prevented an attempt at a critical evaluation of that debt. As late as 1685-when Erbury had been in his grave for thirty years-the author of A Winding-sheet for Mr. Baxter's Dead, listed Erbury first among those who "in their time were as eminent ministers as any in Wales". True, he remarked that Erbury's heart was bigger than his head-but that is not an unforgivable fault. Men are not always best moved by an appeal to reason and in his own ways Erbury made an impact that many found irresistible.