Ecclesiastical Law has established itself as the leading authority on the laws of the Church of England. Offering a uniquely detailed and scholarly exposition of the law, it has become an essential reference for anyone with a professional interest in ecclesiastical and canon law. The fourth edition has been fully revised and updated to take account of significant changes in the substantive law, specifically: the effects of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure 2018; and the overhaul of the procedure in the Consistory Court in consequence of the Faculty Jurisdiction Rules 2015; substantial repeals in the Statute Law (Repeals) Measure 2018 and the new procedure under the Legislative Reform Measure 2018; the effect of the House of Bishops' Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests concerning provision for traditionalists; and the role of the Independent Reviewer under the Priests (Resolution of Disputes Procedure) Regulations 2014. Ecclesiastical Law offers insightful commentary, thoughtful analysis, and a wealth of materials to the practitioner and student alike. Materials include: the Canons of the Church of England, together with the Measures and Rules (updated to 2018) regulating the faculty jurisdiction and clergy discipline.

Cy-pres doctrine, which allows the purpose of a failing or impractical charitable gift to be changed, has been understood since the eighteenth century as a medieval canon law principle, derived from Roman law, to rescue souls by making good their last charitable intentions. The Uses of the Dead offers an alternate origin story for this judicial power, grounded in modern, secular concerns. Posthumous gifts, which required no sacrifice during life, were in fact broadly understood by canon lawyers and medieval donors themselves to have at best a very limited relationship to salvation. As a consequence, for much of the Middle Ages the preferred method for resolving impossible or impractical gifts was to try to reach a consensus among all of the interested parties to the gift, including the donor's heirs and the recipients, with the mediation of the local bishop. When cy-pres emerged in the seventeenth century, it cut a charitable gift o from return to the donor's estate in the event of failure. It also gave the interested parties to the gift (heirs, beneficiaries, or trustees) little authority over resolutions to problematic gifts, which were now considered primarily in relationship to the donor's intent-even as the intent was ultimately honored only in its breach. The Uses of the Dead shows how cy-pres developed out of controversies over church property, particularly monastic property, and whether it might be legally turned over to fund education, poor relief, or national defense. Renaissance humanists hoped to make better, more prudent uses of property; the Reformation sought to correct superstitious abuses of property and ultimately tended to prevent donors' heirs from recovering secularized ecclesiastical gifts; and the early modern state attempted to centralize poor relief and charitable efforts under a more rational, centralized supervision. These three factors combined to replace an older equitable ideal with a new equitable rule-one whose use has rapidly expanded in the modern era to allow assorted approximations and judicial redistributions of property.

Over a period of some five centuries, Europe was transformed by the emergence of barbarian kingdoms in the regions of the former Roman Empire. In the turbulent post-Roman world, the Christian church and its bishops had considerable sway, as these kingdoms developed new institutions such as Christian kingship. Warlike kingdoms competed with each other and took on projects of political consolidation, religious accommodation, and conversion. Religious imperatives shaped the understanding of political culture, alongside aristocratic consensus and cooperation. The Franks ultimately dominated Europe and built a great empire, pursuing a doctrine of missionary warfare. Carolingian kings and nobles were mobilized by a religiously saturated ideology and by the appeal of an aggressive and expansionist political order. Throughout these changes, bishops played a guiding role. Their special garments, liturgies, and hairstyle indicated their character as a priestly brotherhood, set apart from the rest of society, whose task was to regulate the affairs of men and ensure the benevolence of God. The function of bishops as a cohesive religious order, and their collaboration with kings, meant that their ideas had a special prestige. By their blessings bishops could protect crops, houses, and even the kingdom and its warriors. By their mastery of laws--canon, Roman, and barbarian--the bishops grasped the right nature of the social order and indicated to others God's plan for the world. Drawing on the records of nearly 100 bishops' councils spanning the centuries, alongside royal law, edicts, and capitularies of the same period, this study details how royal law and the very character of kingship among the Franks were profoundly affected by episcopal traditions of law and social order.