Hardcover, xvi, 211 pp. Originally published: Cambridge: At the University Press, 1915. Papal Bulls and other documents produced by the Cancellaria Apostolica comprise one of the most important bodies of western canon and ecclesiastical law. They were especially important during the early and high medieval era, the period considered in this incisive study. Poole analyzes the paleographic features of documents produced between the ninth and early thirteenth centuries and their modes of transmission. Turning to the authors, he outlines the history of the Papal Chancery and the characteristics of its literary style. He concludes with a group of useful appendixes containing sample documents and bibliographic data. Revised from Poole’s Birkbeck lectures delivered at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1913.
It contains a vast amount of information very clearly arranged, and in a small compass: and an examination of the references shows that Dr. Poole has an enviable command of the widely scattered literature of his subject. There is no other work in English which deals with the machinery of the early Papal Chancery, and the diplomatic and palaeographical characteristics of its productions. Even those who have ready access to the manuals of Giry and Bresslau will find much new material here, especially in the chapter dealing with the ‘cursus’ and in the valuable appendices. English lawyers will take special pleasure in the chapter which relates to the criticism of documents at the Papal court, where, as in England, so much depends on the verification of seals. –32 Law Quarterly Review 226 (1916)

Reginald Lane Poole [1857-1939] was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; Keeper of the University Archives, 1909-1927; Assistant editor of the English Historical Review on its foundation in 1885 and later editor until 1920. He is the author of Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought (1884) and The Exchequer in the 12th Century (1912). With William Hunt, he edited The Political History of England, 12 volumes (1905-1910).