Until recently the history of the Aubrey family and their extensive estates before 1700–1750 was little known; the archive in the Glamorgan record Office (supplemented by small groups of documents in the Cardiff Central Library and in the Library of the Society of Genealogists) was meagre. The discovery of six boxes of documents among the Chancery Masters’ Exhibits in The National Archives has transformed the position. Dr Lloyd Bowen of Cardiff University has transcribed and edited two of these documents: the household accounts of Sir Thomas Aubrey dating, with gaps, from 1621 to 1637, and the estate survey compiled for his son, Sir John, the first baronet, in 1643. For good measure, Bowen has also included the accounts of Sir John, the second baronet, 1684–94, from the Cardiff Central Library. These provide interesting points of comparison with the earlier accounts. It might also have been useful to have included Sir Thomas’ will and inventory.

In an absorbing introduction, Lloyd Bowen draws out from the bare accounts, and from other sources, a rounded picture of Aubrey the landowner and local administrator, his political and religious leanings, his social and family life, his farming and gardening. He exaggerates a little when claiming that Sir Thomas ‘remained one of the three or four most powerful gentlemen in Glamorgan society for much of the early seventeenth century’ (p. 44). The list of gentry compiled by Richard Symonds in 1645 suggests that Aubrey was one of eight squires of a thousand a year, and that above them were seven gentlemen whose annual incomes ranged from £5000 to £1200. Above these again were four earls with large estates in Glamorgan (Pembroke, Worcester, Leicester and Bolingbroke), though none of these was resident. Nevertheless, Sir Thomas undoubtedly took a prominent part in the government of the county and proved to be someone upon whom the King could rely to collect extra-parliamentary taxes and loans.

Among the many aspects of Sir Thomas Aubrey's life that emerge from his accounts is the place of music, song and poetry in his house. Bowen deals with this in a fascinating section headed ‘Hospitality and Culture’. Around New Year 1622 he paid ‘George my harper’ three shillings four pence and also ‘for the 12 dayes’ ten shillings; at the same time ‘minstrels’ were paid two shillings. Harpers belonging to neighbouring gentry households also received payment at different times. Furthermore, several poets, only one of whom is named, also received their rewards. A few months after Lady Aubrey's death, ten shillings was given ‘for writing my Ladie[’s] elagi’. All this shows that the traditional culture of the Welsh gentry was still maintained in Glamorgan as late as the 1630s, while scholars have tended to view it as in terminal decline long before then. But more up-to-date entertainments featured alongside the traditional ones. On one occasion ‘the Kinges Players’, apparently visiting Glamorgan under the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke, had twenty shillings from Sir Thomas.

Dr Bowen has edited a bizarrely spelt text with care and every consideration for the reader. He provides a serviceable glossary of many (but not quite all) of the obscure terms that occur. Perhaps ‘vellice’ > fellies, the outer rim of a wheel, and ‘cutting’, castrating animals, should have been listed. I feel sure that ‘ordinary’ was a public dinner, not as explained on p. 222. More interesting are the words ‘beat’ and ‘beater’ which appear several times in the accounts. When understood in conjunction with ‘coapsinge’ and ‘trenchinge’, it is clear that some serious land reclamation, or at least land improvement, was under way in the winter of 1636 on Mynydd Cobb (part of the demesne, the modern Maesiward farm) in the manor of Tal-y-fan, adjoining Llantrithyd.

Family and Society in Early Stuart Glamorgan casts welcome light on the life of one of the substantial landed gentry. As a source, Sir Thomas Aubrey's accounts are detailed, and not without problems of interpretation; their overriding quality is their uniqueness in the Welsh context. Lloyd Bowen has done a service to scholarship by publishing them in this fine edition.