Introduction

Whilst North America benefited from the immigration of canonists from the Continent because of Nazi totalitarianism, above all Stephan Kuttner, no one crossed the Channel to continue the pioneering work of Zachary Brooke and Cuthbert Turner. Interest in medieval canon law in the postwar era, moreover, turned toward the period after Gratian, above all the development and reception of the decretal collections. It was Martin Brett who resumed the work on pre-Gratian canon law that had begun so promisingly with Brooke. The idea of the ‘hunt’ is peculiarly appropriate for the study of medieval canon law, especially pre-Gratian canon law, where the search to specify dates, to identify formal sources and audiences, as well as to trace the transmission of texts between collections involve dogged determination and endless patience. Here attention to detail is of paramount importance as even minor variants could be the keys to establishing links between manuscripts and collections, especially when the intermediary compilations are not extant.