This latest volume in the ongoing History of Medieval Canon Law series covers the period from Gratian's initial teaching of canon law during the 1120s to just before the promulgation of the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX in 1234.

In this second volume of studies on 12th-century canon law, Charles Duggan emphasises the European context of the emergence of the ius novum, the new law of the Western church, based on specific cases and informed by the academic learning of the schools where canon law was taught as a scholarly discipline. The themes range from marriage and forgery to regional applications, with studies on decretals to Hungary and Archbishop Roger of York respectively, Italian marriage decretals, the impact of the Becket dispute, litigation involving English secular magnates and the crown culminating with a perceptive analysis of the role of judges delegate in the formation and application of the new principles of law and jurisprudence which the practice of local courts and appeals to the papacy brought into being. Significant light is thrown on English collectors, judges, and secular and ecclesiastical litigants. Wherever possible, calendars are provided, often with more accurate identifications and dating, and based on the fullest manuscript sources.

An examination of the transmission and spread of papal documents in the Latin West between the 4th and 9th centuries. These documents, which were collected from the 5th century onwards, became the basis of canon law. The second part of the volume discusses the prevalence of forged decress which were attributed to the earliest popes.

The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law reflects the continued transformation of criminal law into a global discipline, providing scholars with a comprehensive international resource, a common point of entry into cutting edge contemporary research and a snapshot of the state and scope of the field. To this end, the Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter, disciplinarily, geographically, and systematically. Its contributors include current and future research leaders representing a variety of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise, and research agendas. The Handbook is divided into four parts: Approaches & Methods (I), Systems & Methods (II), Aspects & Issues (III), and Contexts & Comparisons (IV). Part I includes essays exploring various methodological approaches to criminal law (such as criminology, feminist studies, and history). Part II provides an overview of systems or models of criminal law, laying the foundation for further inquiry into specific conceptions of criminal law as well as for comparative analysis (such as Islamic, Marxist, and military law). Part III covers the three aspects of the penal process: the definition of norms and principles of liability (substantive criminal law), along with a less detailed treatment of the imposition of norms (criminal procedure) and the infliction of sanctions (prison law). Contributors consider the basic topics traditionally addressed in scholarship on the general and special parts of the substantive criminal law (such as jurisdiction, mens rea, justifications, and excuses). Part IV places criminal law in context, both domestically and transnationally, by exploring the contrasts between criminal law and other species of law and state power and by investigating criminal law's place in the projects of comparative law, transnational, and international law.

The Use of Canon Law in Ecclesiastical Administration, 1000–1234 explores the integration of canon law within administration and society in the central Middle Ages. Grounded in the careers of ecclesiastical administrators, each essay serves as a case study that couples law with social, political or intellectual developments. Together, the essays seek to integrate the textual analysis necessary to understand the evolution and transmission of the legal tradition into the broader study of twelfth century ecclesiastical government and practice. The essays therefore both place law into the wider developments of the long twelfth century but also highlight points of continuity throughout the period. Contributors are Greta Austin, Bruce C. Brasington, Kathleen G. Cushing, Stephan Dusil, Louis I. Hamilton, Mia Münster-Swendsen, William L. North, John S. Ott, and Jason Taliadoros.

New Discourses in Medieval Canon Law Research offers a new narrative for medieval canon law history which avoids the pitfall of teleological explanations by taking seriously the multiplicity of legal development in the Middle Ages and the divergent interests of the actors involved. The contributors address the still dominant ‘master narrative’, mainly developed by Paul Fournier and enshrined in his magisterial Histoire de collections canoniques. They present new research on pre-Gratian canon collection, Gratian’s Decretum, decretal collections, but also hagiography, theology, and narrative sources challenging the standard account; a separate chapter is devoted to Fournier’s model and its genesis. New Discourses thus brings together specialized research and broader questions of who to write the history of church law in the Middle Ages. Contributors are Greta Austin, Katheleen G. Cushing, Stephan Dusil, Tatsushi Genka, John S. Ott, Christof Rolker, Danica Summerlin, Andreas Thier and John C. Wei.

This book offers perspectives on the legal and intellectual developments of the twelfth century. Gratian's collection of Church law, the Decretum, was a key text in these developments. Compiled in around 1140, it remained a fundamental work throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. Until now, the many mysteries surrounding the creation of the Decretum have remained unsolved, thereby hampering exploration of the jurisprudential renaissance of the twelfth century. Professor Winroth has now discovered the original version of the Decretum, which has long lain unnoticed among medieval manuscripts, in a version about half as long as the final text. It is also different from the final version in many respects - for example, with regard to the use of of Roman law sources - enabling a reconsideration of the resurgence of law in the twelfth century.