This is the sort of book of which there need to be more in the study of Celtic history. In a survey of medieval archaeology published in 1983 Wendy Davies noted that, at a time when there was a growing trend by historians of the Celtic lands toward edition of texts, not a lot of 'history' was being written. In this volume John Reuben Davies provides not a new edition of Liber Landauensis (henceforth LL), nor a linguistic commentary, but a full study of the context of the LL that presents a survey of previous debates and offers a detailed analysis of its potential as an historical source. This sort of discursive historical study allows us to contextualise our limited documentary material. Davie's volume is presented as complementary to a new philological study of LL by Patrick Sims-Williams (ix), which it is to be hoped will see the light of day in the near future, but it is consciously concerned with the historical questions that surround the contents of LL. The result is a valuable contribution to the study of the diocesan organisation of Wales in the later first millennium and of the neglected hagiographic material in LL which will well serve the needs of medieval Welsh historical study.

Davies's study addresses the key problems of a work that presents some of our first survivals from a documentary record that once stretched back much further into the past. The problems of anachronism and appropriation of older material via new formulae are treated humanely, without the governing assumption that all such appropriation was baldly dishonest. Within the limited opportunities for diachronic study presented by LL, Davies treats the anachronisms as being as much an opportunity as a problem (14). Analysis of texts such as the charters (76-7) and of the LL Vita S. Samsonis (64-7) shows the ways in which details were subtly altered to strengthen the claim for an earlier primacy of Glamorgan, but without retreat from his basic, and plausible, premise that Bishop Urban was "expressing a truth rather than a reality" (148) of continuity if not direct episcopal succession. The first Vita S. Samsonis, an independent source from Brittany, is suggestive of an episcopal authority based in the south-east with jurisdiction across South Wales, and Davies's moderation of the strictures of critics such as C. N. L. Brooke and J. W. James is welcome. There is also solid critique (76-7) of the ex silentio tendency of treatment of eleventh/twelfth-century hagiography that has led to claims that it is primarily reactive to Norman appropriation.

Davies has divided his work into two parts: the first examines the development of the see of Llandaf in terms of Norman and Welsh ecclesiastical networks, while the second takes a close look at LL itself as a work of literature, hagiography, and propaganda. The first section provides a valuable summary of a large body of complicated material, even if some aspects fail to convince (for example, the author's description of the relatively equal strength of the bargaining positions of Bishop Urban and Earl Robert has been challenged). The second section involves examination of texts of a variety of genres and is especially valuable for the attention paid to the Lives of saints which to a large extent, as the author reasonably comments, "scholarship has generally chosen to pass over" (109). Having the LL material examined within a context of other twelfth- century origin-legends (which is, broadly speaking, the genre within which much of this falls) is extremely useful, illuminating not only local preoccupations but also wider questions concerning Glastonbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the like. Also worthy of mention (although extremely brief) is the discussion of comparable gospel books and cartularies, both insular and continental in origin.

There are a few difficulties of organisation. At times there is considerable repetition and over-enthusiastic cross-referencing. The extensive provision of material in the appendices is on the whole useful, but would have benefitted from some editing. A footnote on the bottom of p. 95 suggests a worrying tendency to literal reading of hagiography. Otherwise the book is extremely tidy in presentation and very readable. It is a very welcome and useful contribution.