Lectures on the History of the Papal Chancery Down to the Time of Innocent III

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 pal