This substantial book, an abridged version of Brigitte Hotz's doctoral dissertation of 1999, concerns appointments by the Avignon papacy to the cathedral chapter of Constance in the form of both direct provisions and expectative graces. After an introductory chapter on the status quaestionis and the sources, chapter ii describes the constitution of the cathedral chapter of Constance, a self-perpetuating body that was the ordinary collator of its own canonries. The following chapter describes the system that in the fourteenth century almost completely eroded the cathedral chapter's rights: papal appointments to ecclesiastical benefices. It clearly distinguishes the various methods of appointment and (pp. 59–60) usefully analyses the phraseology of papal letters of appointment. The two next chapters in a sense represent the heart of the volume. Chapter iv describes the effect of papal appointments on the cathedral chapter and the local reaction to them, especially that of the bishop, while chapter v concerns the differing behaviour of individual popes in making appointments, looking at the question in the widest possible context and providing the most detailed analysis of its kind ever attempted. The pontificates of Urban v and Gregory xi saw a proliferation of papal appointments, more favoured treatment for those who had studied at university and other changes (chapter vi). Hotz is able to show that the most effective means of appointment to the chapter of Constance was by the papacy, above all through expectative graces. This led to an increase in the proportion of university-trained clerks and a decrease in the numbers of aristocrats. On the eve of the Great Schism, eighteen of the twenty canons were papal appointees, and the majority were not of noble birth (chapter vii). An epilogue deals with the effects of the Schism on the chapter and discusses the disputed appointment to the bishopric of Constance in 1384–5 (two further contributions by Hotz concerning the pontificate of Clement vii of Avignon should be mentioned here: ‘Krönungsnahe Vorzugsdaten unter Clemens VII.’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken lxxxii [2002], 122–92, and ‘Leopold von Österreich – ein Parteigänger Clemens’ VII. der ersten Schismastunde?', in S. Arend and others [eds], Vielfalt und Aktualität des Mittelalters: Festschrift für Wolfgang Petke zum 65. Geburtstag, Bielefeld 2006, 615–32). The remainder of the book is taken up with lists and tables which summarise the results of the author's research and with biographies of those who held canonries in 1378. Here too there is much of interest (see, for instance, the account of the family connections and ecclesiastical preferment of the chronicler Heinrich von Diessenhofen at pp. 670–6). Hotz's book is a significant extension of the conclusions of Andreas Meyer's study of appointments to the collegiate churches of the Grossmünster and Fraumünster in Zurich (Zürich und Rom, Tübingen 1986). It displays a profound understanding both of local conditions and of the mechanisms by which the papacy governed the Latin Church.