In recent years, Medievalists have worked diligently to rehabilitate the image of the Avignon Papacy, which has been decried for its corruption and ineffectiveness. Irene Bueno has brought together a collection of essays that reintroduce Pope Benedict XII (born Jacques Fournier) and attempt to elevate the fourteenth-century pontiff to a place of higher prominence in Late Medieval Studies. While many historians know Fournier as the inquisitor who policed a southern French village in Emmanuel Le Roy Lauderie's famous work Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (translated by Barbara Bray [Vintage Books, 1979]), fewer scholars ascribe significance to his papacy.

Bueno offers that Benedict XII's lack of recognition stems from two contextual problems. First, that his papacy was rather short (r. 1334–1342) and, second, that this third pope at Avignon reigned between the huge personalities of John XXII (r. 1316–1334) and Clement VI (r. 1342–1352). In particular, Benedict XII ascended to the papacy after the often-controversial papacy of John XXII, who clashed with European political leaders and theologians alike.

Each of the nine essays addresses a different aspect of Benedict XII's career, both as Jacques Fourier, Inquisitor, Bishop and Master of the Sacred Palace, and as pope himself. The essays examine a wide range of Benedict XII's decisions, policies actions, including reexamining inquisitorial procedure and questioning, theological issues such as the Beatific Vision controversy, international diplomacy, crusading, and directives to missionaries in Far East Asia. Each of the essays in the collection are well-considered and well-researched and offer significant contributions to the work as a whole.

Three essays stand apart from the others. Elizabeth Sherman's contribution, “Jacques Fournier and Thirteenth-Century Inquisitorial Methods” reconsiders Fournier's motivations for his commitment to inquisition. In the past, historians have posited that Fournier dedicated himself to his duties out of the desire to expand the power of the Latin Church. Sherman rejects this thesis outright, arguing instead that Fournier probed so deeply into the lives of his deponents because the nature of heresy had changed dramatically. In other words, Fournier found evidence of heterodox beliefs, but those beliefs did not fit the pattern established by the Dominican inquisitors who attempted to root out heresy prior to Fournier's arrival. Scholars of heterodox Christian thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries will find that this chapter and its argument pair well with the recent contributions of Mark Pegg and R. I. Moore to the study of heresy, particularly on the so-called Cathars of southern France.

Mike Carr's chapter, “Benedict XII and the Crusades,” demonstrates that Benedict XII took a far more active approach to crusading than prior scholars have thought. While Benedict XII did not take aggressive action in the Latin East against the growing Turkish threat, the pontiff did extend crusading privileges to some western European monarchs and provided aid to Latin Christian allies in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, Carr posits, Benedict XII focused more on maintaining these places’ fidelity to Latin Christian orthodoxy than prosecuting military campaigns in the Latin East. Carr suggests that such a strategy should come as unsurprising, given Benedict XII's past as an inquisitor and theologian. Indeed, even those kingdoms to which Benedict XII granted crusading privileges were in good standing with the papacy at the time of their requests, and kingdoms who were not received no such privileges. Despite such a change in crusading policy, though, Carr reminds his readers that when Clement VI ascended the papal throne, he was able to mount a crusade within a year, and that Benedict XII's policies allowed him to do so.

Bueno's own contribution to the volume also warrants recognition. “Benedict XII and the partes Orientis” examines the pontiff's policies regarding Christians and their various others in places outside of western Europe, particularly Greece, Armenia, and in Mongol Asia. Bueno divides the people living in these spaces into three categories: Non-Catholic, non-Properly Catholic, and non-Christian, an interesting if slightly reductive categorization. The goal of the chapter is to demonstrate Benedict XII's attitude towards each of these classes of residents, with the result being that Benedict XII extended the most generous diplomatic gestures to the Mongol Khans and the most inflexible and strident ultimatums toward the Greeks. The chapter relies on primary sources for the Latin presence in the East such as Reg. Vat. 62, Guillermo Golubovich's Biblioteca Bio-Bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell'Oriente Francescano, and the collection of papal letters to the East compiled by Aloysius Tautu, which Bueno mines with aplomb (Collegio S. Bonaventurae, 1906–1927). Perhaps, though, Bueno spends too much time on well-worn paths such as those of the Greeks and the Mongols, instead of shifting her focus to other Latin Christians or non-Latin Christians in these spaces. An archdiocese existed in both Persia and in Mongol China at this time, although this does not receive mention in the chapter. Discussion around the activities of and papal directives to these places merit more attention.

Overall, Irene Bueno has put together an edited volume that contributes much to the study of the Late Medieval Papacy and of Benedict XII himself. These chapters form a refreshing reexamination of the pontiff and his activities and should reinvigorate scholarly attention to this often-overlooked pope. Both John XXII and Clement VI still loom large over the volume, but Benedict stands well enough on his own. Bueno writes in her introduction that no comprehensive overview of the life of Benedict XII exists in monograph form, and it still does not exist, but this volume takes a long step towards filling that gap. Scholars and students interested in the Late Medieval Papacy would do well to take notice of this fine volume and mine it for future directions for their research.