Native Law and the Church in Medieval Wales.

The history of the Church in medieval Wales is arguably one of the most complex issues in the already complex field of early Welsh history, and this new study by Huw Pryce makes an illuminating contribution to our understanding of it. The focus of the study is upon the law books, rather than upon church history proper: working from the basis of the extant Welsh law books, Pryce examines in turn the place of the Church and its officers within native Welsh law, and the influence upon those laws exerted by the Church. Solid textual analysis combined with rigorous scholarship reveals not simply a paradigm for the role of the Church within Welsh society (as has tended to be the case with earlier studies in this field), but a detailed and …