Cylchgronau Cymru

sprang to mind' as she worked on those lists. The book is no more and no less than that. It begins with a definition of the territorial extent of Gwynedd based in part on assumptions which Dr. Miller describes as 'convenient'. There then follow four tables. The first lists the early inscriptions of Gwynedd; the second gives brief accounts of the religious houses of Gwynedd (based almost exclusively on the lists of Dom David Knowles and his colleagues) and the third and fourth present information about place-names which were either derived from the names of saints or associated with cults offered to saints. These tables, which are accompanied by brief discussions of their contents, are followed by a series of individual studies of groups of saints, such as Cybi and his associates and 'The Ictian Fraternity', together with notes on bishops and on the pilgrimage-routes to Bardsey Island. These studies are based on the tables, although they draw on other information. It is difficult for a reviewer who is not a specialist in Celtic studies to estimate what effect this compilation may have on those concerned with the details of Welsh history. What is certain is that it is very difficult to learn anything from the book about the saints of Gwynedd or even about their hagiography. Dr. Miller is candid about the inadequacy of the extant evidence for her studies. She emphasises that the majority of the sources are late in date and that they are 'superficially valueless'; some are 'antiquarian or speculative'. Dr. Miller explains at length that her third table, which concerns place-names and saints, may well have no importance; and the reader is disconcerted to find that a statistical summary of her third list is marked 'not suitable for statistical use'. As for the groupings of saints, which are based on the work of later medieval writers, 'it is possible at this stage to make only the roughest guesses about their historical value'. Dr. Miller's subject is clearly an exceptionally difficult one and she has done something towards organising the materials for it. Lists III and IV, which document the first references to saints associated with particular sites, may in fact be of use to those interested in building up a history of saints' cults in Wales. Dr. Miller's work, however, is so unfinished and uncertain that it is doubtful whether publication of it in book-form was justified. Dr. Dumville was evidently impressed by the author's 'experimental approach'. That approach seems to consist of comparing early epigraphic evidence with later medieval material to see whether or not a plausible picture of the 'Age of Saints' can be formed. The tables are designed to facilitate this process. Such a method will always leave unanswered the question of the basis of the assertions made in the later sources. Those sources may be plausible; but this does not constitute proof of their veracity. Unless textual work can show that the compilers of the later medieval sources were reliably informed, Dr. Miller's method can only lead to hypotheses which may be lent a false authority by the apparent precision of the method. Dr. Miller herself perceives this; for she is evidently uncertain whether her work casts light on the 'Age of Saints' or the traditions of later medieval hagiography. The flimsiness of the evidence undermines the value of the suggestions which she makes concerning the light which her work throws on, for example, cultural changes in sixth-century Gwynedd, the probable