D. L. d'Avray is Professor Emeritus of History at University College London and a Supernumerary Fellow of Jesus College Oxford. He has published widely on medieval preaching, death and kingship, marriage, rationalities, and the papacy. He has published ten books, the last six with Cambridge, including most recently Papal Jurisprudence, 385–1234: Social Origins and Medieval Reception of Canon Law (2022). He has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2005 and Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America since 2016.

• 1. Introduction; 2. The history of papal diplomatic; 3. Papal documents, c. 400 – c. 1150; 4. The religious governance of the Latin world, 1150–1378; 5. From schism to counter reformation, c. 1450–c.1600; 6. Retrospective: some long-term continuities; Reproductions.

'The work is equally useful and stimulating for learners as a textbook and for researchers, and thus fully meets its requirements. The consistent pursuit of a thesis sets it apart from other, more thematically oriented handbooks and offers a central thread that the reader can follow, while at the same time being encouraged to critically reconstruct the methodological steps. This makes it highly recommended for both beginners and experienced scientists.' Aaron Schwarz, Francia-Recensio