This substantial volume publishes the proceedings of a conference organised by the editor at the German Historical Institute in Rome in March 2003. It is dominated by German-speaking scholarship; the nineteen conference papers in the volume include fifteen in German, two in Italian, one in Spanish and one in English (ironically by a German scholar). This is not wholly surprising. German and Austrian scholars have long led the field in the study of the papal curia and canon law in the later medieval west. The German Historical Institute in Rome has been closely associated with this since its inception, as its current director Michael Matheus points out in his foreword to the volume. Along with the École française de Rome it remains at the forefront of international efforts to publish the medieval records of the papal curia, notably in its series the Repertorium Germanicum (founded in 1893). Indeed many of the papers are by former or current collaborators of the institute and hence largely concern the curia. But the subject of the volume is broader than this. The medieval corpus of canon law that remained binding on all Catholics until 1917 was largely formed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thus many historians of canon law disregard the late Middle Ages as a period of stagnation, the editor notes in his introduction. Arguably the history of the late medieval institutional Church has been generally neglected, notably in Anglophone scholarship, as a prelude to the Reformation or postlude to the reform papacy. A recent English book on the papal monarchy ends in 1250. Even revisionist attempts to demonstrate the vigour of late medieval religion in England tend to focus on popular piety rather than the clerical hierarchy. This volume usefully redresses such scholarly neglect. In particular it shows how the curia's administrative machinery developed in the later Middle Ages such that canon law touched the lives of more and more people on more and more issues.

The papers roughly fall into three main areas (not explicitly identified by the editor). The first four papers broadly concern canon law collections and canonistic thought: Peter Landau gives a concise account of the formation of the ‘classical’ canon law in the period 1140–1298 and the juristic doctrine that developed alongside it; Knut Wolfgang Nörr argues that even after this period, when the flow of papal legislation ceased, canon law continued to develop through the administrative rules of the papal chancery and decisions of papal judges in the Rota, and that juristic thought played an important role in this development; Orazio Condorelli demonstrates the vigour of that thought in the conciliar period as it responded to issues raised by the ‘Great Schism’, and in particular he discusses the variously pro-papal or pro-conciliar ideas of Francesco Zaberella, Nicolò Tedeschi and Nicholas of Cusa on ecclesiastical jurisdiction and consent; finally Tilmann Schmidt treats the reception of the last major collection of medieval canon law, Boniface viii's Liber Sextus (1298), observing that the universities and ecclesiastical hierarchy played decisive roles in its wide diffusion. The next nine papers concern the various departments of the late medieval curia, their records and practices. Brigide Schwarz, one of the leading editors of the Repertorium Germanicum, demonstrates its value for the history of canon law. It comprises entries concerning the German empire calendared from various series of papal registers from 1378 onwards. Some entries provide biographical evidence about jurists and lawyers, and almost all are phrased in legal language and illustrate the application of canon law especially regarding ecclesiastical benefices, the subject of 80 per cent of the entries. Ludwig Schmugge likewise points to the fifteenth-century records of the papal penitentiary as evidence of a deep-rooted canon law culture. The penitentiary granted absolutions and dispensations from violations of canon law. Successful requests for such favours were copied in its registers; entries regarding the empire in the registers are being edited by Schmugge and others in the Repertorium Poenitentiariae Germanicum (published by the institute). Andreas Meyer presents findings of another major project, a new edition of the rules of the papal chancery, observing that their survival is uneven for different pontificates and in different parts of Europe. Few copies survive in England, a fact that he unconvincingly attributes to Edward iii's anti-papal statutes; it seems more likely that many were simply discarded at the Reformation. Gero Dolezalek surveys the medieval records of another curial office, the Rota, which emerged as a central judicial body of the Church in the fourteenth century; in particular he examines manuals of the Rota at the Council of Basle compiled between 1433 and 1439. Götz-Rüdiger Tewes explores the evolution of the datary, a curial department that emerged even later, developing in the fifteenth century as the pope's private finance office (comparable in this respect to the chamber in contemporary English royal government). Othmar Hageneder observes the influence of canon law and canonistic doctrine on certain formulae in papal letters, notably non obstante clauses. Brigitte Hotz advances an interesting case for stagnation and evolution, noting that canon law on expectatives was partly confirmed and partly modified by chancery rules of the Avignon popes Urban v and Clement vii. Peter Herde traces the development of formularies for papal letters of justice; these were compiled after the papal audientia emerged, a forum that increasingly handled such letters from the early thirteenth century. A vulgate formulary was established under Boniface viii and supplemented down to John xxii's pontificate but no new collections superseded it until the sixteenth century. Harald Müller considers the papacy's attempts to reform its courts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; despite contemporary complaints of their costliness and slowness, papal tribunals still served as a model for other spiritual and secular courts, especially in their strict code of practice for advocates. The last six papers assess the later medieval development and application of canon law on specific issues: indulgences (Bernhard Schimmelpfennig); the inquisition (Wolfram Benziger); canonisation (Thomas Wetzstein); minor benefices (Karl Borchardt); female ornament (Mario Ascheri); diocesan synods (Antonio García y García). The first three conclude that canon law on their subjects was largely defined by the thirteenth century but then continued to develop by other means, namely curial practices that deviated from legal norms (Schimmelpfennig), inquistorial manuals systematising and explaining the law (Benziger) and administrative innovations (Wetzstein). Borchardt observes that minor benefices attracted little legislative attention before the fifteenth century but even then attempts to reform them at the Council of Basle and under Innocent viii were limited and half-hearted. Ascheri, like Benziger, notes treatises as a major development in later medieval canonistic literature, observing that they took a more tolerant line on female dress than contemporary moralists and city statutes. Like Schimmelpfennig and Wetzstein García y García finds no legal innovation, but much variation in practice, between the thirteenth century and the early modern period; he concludes by surveying research on synodal records, notably the Synodicon Hispanum.

All nineteen papers in this volume give different answers to the question posed by its title, and the editor sensibly avoids any definitive conclusions but ends the volume with a record of the round-table discussion which closed the conference. This involved five jurists who offer their perspectives on this question, emphasising the development of canonistic doctrine, especially consilia, and popular knowledge of canon law in the later Middle Ages (Dolezalek, Landau) and the need for further research (Hans-Jürgen Becker). The editor intends the question as a heuristic stimulus to such work, involving the collaboration of jurists and historians, and although the round-table participants lament the decline of canon law studies, this volume provides ample evidence of their vigour and inspiration for their continuation.