This remarkable set of volumes touches a particularly immediate interest for a reviewer living just 25 miles from Embleton Rectory in Northumberland in the far north of England! Mandell Creighton, later Bishop of London, while incumbent there, wrote his remarkable five volume history of the Papacy from the Great Schism (1378) to the Sack of Rome (1527)! This is but one of the latest attempts to set the papacy within the context of the Church and the wider world.

This is merely a ‘Short Notice’, rather than a review (which would be well nigh impossible and almost amount to a book in itself. This notice, then, describes the range and approach of these volumes, which realistically will, almost always, be available only in institutional libraries. Indeed, that will be that destination of the set being described here.

Altogether, over the three volumes, respectively there are 30, 24 and 30 scholars writing in total, with, understandably little overlap of writers volume to volume.each brings their own specialism. The three volumes are titled ‘The Two Swords’, ‘The Governance of the Church, and ‘Civil Society’.

The first volume explores how changing ideas, beliefs and practices in the broader world engaged the papacy and led it to define its own conceptualisations of power. It was this dynamic which enabled the papacy to shift and be reshaped according to circumstances often well beyond its control of influence. The second volume is more obviously directed to the internal structure and operation of the church, and the third, on its impact upon wider world history. Each of the three volumes is prefaced by the same general introduction of some thirty pages. It begins on a portentous note: ‘The papacy is commonly referred to as the world’s oldest surviving institution.’ The question is then asked as to how and why the papacy has survived over the centuries as an instrument of authority, governance, and influence when so many other powerful institutions – empires and states – have either disappeared or have been reduced to largely ceremonial functions. These three volumes, then, are organised to provide) a critical-historical survey of the structural development of the papacy both as an institution, and as an actor in Church and world history.

The volumes are structured using two different but intersecting categories. The first relates to the papacy’s theo-political imagination as seen through the theological presuppositions of the popes and their vision of the papacy and its place in the church and the world. The second category is engaged with the praxis of papal politics over the course of history. This is not a collective biography of popes. It is a thoroughly contemporary piece of scholarship and even the synodal process and debates of the present day are not ignored.

These volumes cannot be commended too highly for all who are professionally engaged in scholarship not only on the papacy itself but also on ecclesiology and ecumenical studies.