This work investigates the legal and social status of individuals held in servitude within the ecclesiastical structures of the medieval period. Mary E. Sommar, a scholar of canon law and medieval history, utilizes primary source documents, including conciliar decrees and papal correspondence, to reconstruct the complex relationship between the Church and the institution of slavery. The text argues that the Church's internal policies regarding its own enslaved populations often diverged from its broader theological pronouncements on human liberty.

Scholars in the field of medieval canon law recognize this text as a rigorous examination of the intersection between institutional property rights and human bondage. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is intended for researchers and students of ecclesiastical history.