This is a dissertation completed in 2000 and now published ‘lightly revised’. The old adage that ‘in every fat book there is a thin book trying to get out’ in this case could be altered to ‘a very good thin book’. Readers will struggle to find the thin book within this massive work that is still very much a dissertation. This is particularly true of the very long fifth chapter (pp. 235–522). The bestowal of benefices was a key issue in the Church between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. A detailed study of the subject in one of Germany's most important dioceses is very welcome. At the Third Lateran Council Pope Alexander iii decreed that a bishop had the obligation to provide a cleric whom he raised to the diaconate or the priesthood with a ‘stipendium’ for his clerical service. A century later Boniface viii resoundingly declared in Asculta fili that the pope has ‘supreme and effective power over ecclesiastical dignities, and benefices’. Earlier studies of the subject, including my own, have discussed the law surrounding provisions and have speculated about the effect that centralisation of the Church may have had on the composition of local cathedral chapters. This book studies in extraordinary detail the cathedral chapter of Magdeburg in the late Middle Ages, from the pontificate of Boniface to Pius ii. Willich also announces his intention to carry the story to 1521 in a second volume. Here he collects as much data as he can on 262 canons who were given benefices either through the bishop and chapter, papal provisions or imperial requests and has appended a chronological tabulation of them (pp. 541–52). Although Willich has culled as much information as possible from the extant sources, he has not been able to answer all the questions that we might like but has given us significant results. He finds that the number of papal provisions to the chapter increased significantly after 1350 although many were not successful. In the early fourteenth century the canons were drawn heavily from the local high nobility. They lost their primacy of place as the century progressed. After the pontificate of Pope Clement vi the higher nobility never dominated the chapter again. The main winners were university-educated clerics, particularly canon lawyers, who generally came from the lesser nobility. At the beginning of Willich's study 19·5 per cent of the canons went to the university; by the end 71 per cent. In 1447 a statute established that if a cleric were not from the noble classes his academic career could replace his lack of social standing. In the fifteenth century, however, it seems that the chapter had very few theologians and many lawyers, which may reflect the age. One last striking finding of this study is the absence of foreign clerics. Only three Italians received benefices in Magdeburg in the course of two centuries. Magdeburg, it seems, knew how to thwart papal claims.