At a time when notions of the extended family and its importance have been eroded and have all but disintegrated, Sam Worby's study of the mediaeval law of kinship demonstrates how family ties and relations dominated lives in the later Middle Ages. Weighing in at 144 pages of text with an additional 35 pages of appendices, her book is a concise but important one, as it alters our assumptions about the family and legal kinship in mediaeval England. As she makes clear in separate chapters on kinship structures in common law and in canon law, the main difference between the two legal approaches lay in canon law's focus on marriage, whereas the common law concerned itself with the effects of kinship on inheritance. Like other impediments to marriage, the canon law strictures on consanguinity and affinity were complex. Worby tries to avoid the technicalities that are part and parcel of kinship studies and offers lucid explanations of legal concepts and underlying theories.

As if unpeeling an onion, Worby guides the reader through the different layers of kinship, from the formal rules through to what happened in practice. The four appendices contain transcriptions of four popular thirteenth-century kinship treatises: Raymon de Penyafort's Quia Tractare Intendimus (c 1235); the anonymous Sciendum est; Quibus Modis, an adaptation by common lawyers of a lecture on trees of consanguinity and affinity by Johannes Egitaniensis; and Triplex Est, an adaptation (again by common lawyers) of Penyafort's treatise on marriage. Interestingly, she highlights the ways in which legal rules in canon law and common law interacted (and the adaptation of canon law by learned common lawyers), and shows, too, how an understanding of the system is complicated by the underlying reality of its operation, which frequently diverged from its ideals. Exposing a further informal layer below the established legal ones, Worby uses anthropological perspectives to examine the social context of kinship, its significance at milestones such as inheritance, marriage and divorce, and the observance of certain proprieties. The efforts made to avoid scandal can be seen in the publicising of a relationship by reading the banns in churches in advance of marriage and seeking papal dispensation for coming within prohibited degrees. The importance of memory and women's role in maintaining and sharing memories about the family is also brought out.

Worby turns to images of trees of consanguinity and affinity, which at a glance visually encapsulated the canon law of kinship and, by showing all the manners of relating, gave practical advice to those viewing them. She could have expanded here on the impact of the visualisation of family relations, especially since ‘Jesse trees’ were not only included in the canon law texts but their message was obvious to all when portrayed in stained glass windows in churches. Equally, the reader's interest is piqued by wanting to be given more detail about some of the practical and social effects of the particular legal attitudes. The volume is nevertheless significant for highlighting the interweaving of canon law and common law and the influence of canon law on the English legal profession.

The hundredth volume of the Canterbury and York Society series is marked by a collection of petitions addressed to the English crown by numerous constituent religious houses (including alien priories) during the period from the late thirteenth to the late fifteenth century. This is a valuable resource for ecclesiastical historians and those studying relations between Church and state and the Church and the papacy, and it also provides significant material of interest to legal, social, political and economic historians. The petitions are arranged in six sections, comprising petitions on routine matters, submissions from corporate religious identities, complaints against abbots and priors and requests for royal intercession. The last, the largest group of petitions, is divided into three sub-categories, covering the obligations of the crown to its subjects (featuring complaints against royal polices and the activities of royal officials such as tax collectors); matters requiring the king's grace (such as issues relating to royal patronage); and petitions to the crown involving third parties (including towns, tenants and other religious houses). As a supplement to the digitised versions of the originals (available individually online from The National Archives), each entry contains the full transcription of the petition, enabling observation of linguistic choice and study of changes in the rhetoric of petitions over time. There is also a summary of the petition in English and an indication of other documentary sources generated both in the lead up to and as a result of the petitioning process. As well as providing an index of personal and place names, the volume is searchable by religious house and religious order, though for those wishing to pursue more precisely the remedies requested or particular areas of law, it unfortunately lacks a subject index.

In historical terms, the collection demonstrates the machinery of royal government at work, especially the dynamics of the petitioning process, and enables various aspects of both royal and ecclesiastical governance to be scrutinised. It sheds light on the rights and obligations of the crown and the religious houses themselves, the power and influence of certain institutions and the resources and financial exigencies of various houses. From a legal point of view, the petitions provide an insight into the tensions and conflicts of daily life both within and beyond the walls of religious houses, demonstrating recourse to a range of writs and judicial remedies in addition to people's faith in recourse to the king himself. The documents illustrate the breakdown of relations between neighbours (both lay and clerical) and detail disputes over property and services arising from the institutions' position as landholders in a changing landscape and economy. They also provide a fresh context for some of the bitter clashes of jurisdiction with towns, notably the well-known dispute between the citizens and monks of Abingdon. The editors' choice of petitions is grounded in the desire to incorporate a full range of subjects and to present petitions that are themselves intrinsically interesting. They are to be commended on their informative introduction on the administrative, legal and political setting of the petitions and in providing such an intriguing and accessible volume.