One of the most conspicuous features of the papal residence at Avignon was the bureaucratisation of the practices of papal government. This is reflected in the abundance of records that survive from the fourteenth century, above all those of the papal chancery and the apostolic chamber. The present volume concerns one type of source deriving from the chamber: the Libri officiariorum, which record the appointment of papal office-holders and other aspects of their service, for instance their payment and their presence in the curia. Most of these officers were employed in the papal administration or household, and most them remained in office with a change of pope. They included laymen as well as clerics; among the latter are many appointments of papal chaplains or honorary chaplains. A further interest of the notes of appointment is that they sometimes specify the patron or ‘promoter’ of the candidate. The fourteenth-century registers do not form a single series, and they are not found in a single class in the Vatican Archives. They are not unknown to scholars, but the work under review is the first detailed study of them.

The first part of the book consists of a series of essays analysing the registers. The volume's editor, Armand Jamme, provides a wide-ranging introduction and conclusion. Especially helpful, in a publication which makes few concessions to the non-specialist, is his summary of the characteristics of these sources (pp. 118–22). The registers appear to be an innovation from the pontificate of Clement vi, perhaps attributable to his chamberlain, Étienne Cambarou. Étienne Anheim considers the earliest register (pp. 17–32), which is arranged by type of office. The next register, from the time of Urban v and discussed by Jamme (pp. 33–60), is different, for its organisation is chronological. It includes a series of oral commands that the pope gave to his chamberlain, giving it a particular immediacy (see pp. 53–4). Changes in the arrangement and function of the registers continued to be made, as the remaining three essays show. Jamme again covers the next registers, of Gregory xi's chamberlain, Pierre de Cros (pp. 61–74). The last essays concern the Great Schism, that is, the pontificates of Clement viii and Benedict xiii, and are by Philippe Genequant and Germain Butaud respectively (pp. 75–113).

The second and longest part of the volume contains a collaborative edition of these Latin sources (pp. 129–414). The editors appear to have achieved a high standard of accuracy, and they have been painstaking in reproducing deletions, additions, marginal notes, signes de renvoi, etc. The reader can view such features, as well as the variety of hands that appear in the registers, with ease in the many illustrations, most of them in colour. These are a particular strength of the volume. The main edition is followed by seven appendices, which edit shorter texts (pp. 415–34), while two indices (of persons and places, and of offices and titles) complete the work.

The Libri officiariorum printed here document the careers of the many men whom they name, some of them significant figures in their own right. Yet the value of the Libri is more than prosopographical: they throw light on the papal court and administration at Avignon and on the personal role of the pope and chamberlain in the government of the Latin Church. Through the welcome efforts of Armand Jamme and his collaborators, these sources now enjoy the prominence that they deserve.