6. THE CHURCH IN WALES: A NEGLECTED WELSH INSTITUTION Chris Harris and Richard Startup INTRODUCTION In Contemporary Wales, Volume 2 (1988) Barry Jones discussed 'The development of Welsh territorial institutions' (our emphasis). In the first paragraph of his article he makes it clear that he is concerned with Welsh political institutions and the article concludes with an appendix on Welsh public institutions. He laments the absence of Welsh national institutions in contrast to those of Scotland and Ireland and refers to Hanham's (1969) history of the rise of Scottish nationalism which he describes as beginning 'with a review of Scotland's national institutions: the church, the educa- tional, legal and banking systems and its central and local government' (Jones 1988, p.48). In his conclusion he doubts the true autonomy of Welsh institutions (p.59). We are not concerned to criticize the general thrust of Jones's article but to point up the confusion that surrounds the use of the term 'Welsh institution'. 'Territorial' clearly refers to a territory in the political sense: an area within which forms of domination are held to be legitimate. It is not used as it will be used in this article, namely to refer to an institution whose structure involves a plurality of territorial units. An institution whose system of territorial units has the same boundaries as those of the territory of a nation may legitimately be called a national institution. By 'public' Jones appears to mean, not an institution which is available to all, but one which is established by the authority of the state. Since there is no Welsh state, it follows that no public institutions in Wales can have full autonomy since they derive their authority from the British state, while those institutions which do not must be excluded from con- sideration since they cannot be 'public' institutions. Hence Jones does not