These four major studies, thoroughly revised for this book, reflect this distinguished historian’s continuing interest in relations between England and Wales in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. An introduction places theconclusions offered in these studies within the current framework of historical thinking about Wales in this period.
The first chapter, a survey of Anglo-Welsh ecclesiastical life in the tenth and eleventh centuries, is followed by The Archbishops of St Davids, Llandaff and Caerleon-on-Usk , in which the twelfth-century claims of certain major Welsh churches to extensive jurisdiction and the methods by which they promoted their claims are subjectedto a searching analysis. In St Peter of Gloucester and St Cadog of Llancarfan a detailed examination is made of the complicated links which bound together the churches of Gloucester and Llancarfan from about 1100 and of the sources which reveal these ties. Finally in Geoffrey of Monmouth as a historian the motivation and methods of one of the most controversial personalities of the Anglo-Welsh Church are considered.