Canon Law, Religion, and Politics extends and honors the work of the distinguished historian Robert Somerville, a preeminent expert on medieval church councils,

---Ecclesiastical Law Review --

The essays selected here for translation derive largely from Thomasius's work on Staatskirchenrecht, or the political jurisprudence of church law. These works,

Canon law touched nearly every aspect of medieval society, including many issues we now think of as purely secular. It regulated marriages, oaths, usury, sorcer