This volume brings together a set of papers by international scholars, distinguished in their own right, in honor of James Brundage. Each contribution corresponds to an important focus of Brundage's own work. The connection between the development of medieval legal thought and constitutional ideas is the theme that marks the first section, while the second centres on the growth of the legal profession. The following papers explore the intersection of law and marriage and finally the influence of legal thinking on the crusading movement.

This volume brings together papers by a group of scholars, distinguished in their own right, in honour of James Brundage. The essays are organised into four sections, each corresponding to an important focus of Brundage's scholarly work. The first section explores the connection between the development of medieval legal and constitutional thought. Thomas Izbicki, Kenneth Pennington, and Charles Reid, Jr. explore various aspects of the jurisprudence of the Ius commune, while James Powell, Michael Gervers and Nicole Hamonic, Olivia Robinson, and Elizabeth Makowski examine how that jurisprudence was applied to various medieval institutions. Brian Tierney and James Muldoon conclude this section by demonstrating two important points: modern ideas of consent in the political sphere and fundamental principles of international law attributed to sixteenth century jurists like Hugo Grotius have deep roots in medieval jurisprudential thought. Patrick Zutshi, R. H. Helmholz, Peter Landau, Marjorie Chibnall, and Edward Peters have written essays that augment Brundage's work on the growth of the legal profession and how traces of a legal education began to emerge in many diverse arenas. The influence of legal thinking on marriage and sexuality was another aspect of Brundage's broad interests. In the third section Richard Kay, Charles Donahue, Jr., and Glenn Olsen explore the intersection of law and marriage and the interplay of legal thought on a central institution of Christian society. The contributions of Jonathan Riley-Smith and Robert Somerville in the fourth section round-out the volume and are devoted to Brundage's path-breaking work on medieval law and the crusading movement. The volume also includes a comprehensive bibliography of Brundage's work.

In the aftermath of sixth-century barbarian invasions, the legal profession that had grown and flourished during the Roman Empire vanished. Nonetheless, professional lawyers suddenly reappeared in Western Europe seven hundred years later during the 1230s when church councils and public authorities began to impose a body of ethical obligations on those who practiced law. James Brundage's The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession traces the history of legal practice from its genesis in ancient Rome to its rebirth in the early Middle Ages and eventual resurgence in the courts of the medieval church. By the end of the eleventh century, Brundage argues, renewed interest in Roman law combined with the rise of canon law of the Western church to trigger a series of consolidations in the profession. New legal procedures emerged, and formal training for proctors and advocates became necessary in order to practice law in the reorganized church courts. Brundage demonstrates that many features that characterize legal advocacy today were already in place by 1250, as lawyers trained in Roman and canon law became professionals in every sense of the term. A sweeping examination of the centuries-long power struggle between local courts and the Christian church, secular rule and religious edict, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession will be a resource for the professional and the student alike.

Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages takes a detailed view on the role of manuscripts and the written word in legal cultures, spanning the medieval period across western and central Europe.

This monumental study of medieval law and sexual conduct explores the origin and develpment of the Christian church's sex law and the systems of belief upon which that law rested. Focusing on the Church's own legal system of canon law, James A. Brundage offers a comprehensive history of legal doctrines–covering the millennium from A.D. 500 to 1500–concerning a wide variety of sexual behavior, including marital sex, adultery, homosexuality, concubinage, prostitution, masturbation, and incest. His survey makes strikingly clear how the system of sexual control in a world we have half-forgotten has shaped the world in which we live today. The regulation of marriage and divorce as we know it today, together with the outlawing of bigamy and polygamy and the imposition of criminal sanctions on such activities as sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, and bestiality, are all based in large measure upon ideas and beliefs about sexual morality that became law in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages. "Brundage's book is consistently learned, enormously useful, and frequently entertaining. It is the best we have on the relationships between theological norms, legal principles, and sexual practice."—Peter Iver Kaufman, Church History

A collection of essays by Michael Sheehan, whose work and interpretation on medieval property, marriage, family, sexuality, and law has insprired scholars for 40 years.

This book introduces the Age of Justinian, the last Roman century and the first flowering of Byzantine culture. Dominated by the policies and personality of emperor Justinian I (527–565), this period of grand achievements and far-reaching failures witnessed the transformation of the Mediterranean world. In this volume, twenty specialists explore the most important aspects of the age including the mechanics and theory of empire, warfare, urbanism, and economy. It also discusses the impact of the great plague, the codification of Roman law, and the many religious upheavals taking place at the time. Consideration is given to imperial relations with the papacy, northern barbarians, the Persians, and other eastern peoples, shedding new light on a dramatic and highly significant historical period.