This volume is the fifth to appear in a series on the history of canon law. Two volumes are yet awaited: The History of Canon Law to 1140 and The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Late Middle Ages, 1234–1500. The material in this volume has chronological overlap with the latter book and with The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234 (2008); its focus is thus the High and late Middle Ages. It brings together experts in the jurisprudence of procedure and the practice of medieval courts. Two contributors (Antonio García y García and Charles Duggan) are now deceased; Pennington and Anne Duggan prepared the final versions of each, respectively, for publication. The other contributors are Barbara Deimling, James A. Brundage, Charles Donahue Jr., Brigide Schwarz, Sara McDougall, R. H. Helmholz, and Péter Cardinal Erdö. Pennington is responsible for the introduction and the chapter on the jurisprudence of procedure.

The volume is large and in some places (e.g., on the papal curia) overly detailed, but it will be indispensable to any scholar working on canon law, the ius commune, ecclesiastical courts, and secular courts. Anyone researching medieval court cases should consult the contributions here in order to put them in context and gain a greater understanding of medieval legal terminology and personnel, standards of court procedure, and jurisprudential norms governing court processes. The volume is composed of two parts: part 1, “Judicial Procedure and Practice in the Medieval Church, 1100–1500,” and part 2, “The Structure and Practice of the Courts in Several Lands.” Roughly speaking, the first part addresses courts and procedure at a more general level across Latin Christendom and at its highest court, the papal curia; the second part addresses courts and procedure in various locales with specific attention to France (Donahue and McDougall), England (Helmholz), Spain (García y García), and eastern central Europe (Erdö). Immediately the reader recognizes geographical gaps; the volume does not, then, pretend to be exhaustive, but it provides a wide-enough spread to demonstrate areas of commonality as well as ways in which local courts varied. Donahue's introductory chapter to part 2 is helpful as a guide to sorting out those similarities and differences.

What the chapters collectively do very well is destroy any ill-conceived notion that one can understand ecclesiastical jurisdiction and how canon law operated—or even what canon law is—in the Middle Ages by merely studying the libri legales, that is, the law books that formed the body of canon law, and the canonistic commentary on them. The chapters present a wide variety of source material ranging from local ecclesiastical acta and individual documents in specific cases to learned consilia written to guide judges. The chapters also caution against interpreting court documents without understanding the jurisprudence and norms that inform and even drive them. As Pennington states, “Scholars should always have one eye on the theory and another on how and whether a particular case adhered to jurisprudential principles and norms” (5). The focus of this volume is on the jurisprudence and implementation of Romano-canonical procedure, one of the most important effects of the revival of Roman law and its interaction with the new science of canon law beginning in the twelfth century. Culminating in the thirteenth century, it directed legal procedures in both the ecclesiastical and secular realms for several centuries and remains influential, in some places, to the present day. The norms of this procedural system appear repeatedly throughout the volume, as do the two different types of procedure, accusatorial and inquisitorial.

An unexpected gem is Deimling's chapter on the location of court proceedings, stretching from the early medieval to the early modern period, demonstrating the powerful impact of the church portal as the space under which justice is meted out. This chapter argues for what others do in their own way, namely, the influence of Christian and ecclesiastical structures and ideas on the Western legal system and civil society.

Although the book is not one to assign in toto to students, all libraries should acquire a copy, many medievalists and canon lawyers will want to own their own copy, and professors of ecclesiastical and legal history might consider assigning individual chapters in their classes.