Jean Gaudemet was a research director at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (5th section – “religious sciences”) and a member of the Commission on the reform of the Canon Law from 1969 to 1980. A renowned historian, he wrote many books, among which are Institutions de l’Antiquité (1972), Les Sources du droit de l’Eglise en Occident du IIe au VIIe siècle (1985), Le mariage en Occident (1987), Les Sources du droit canonique. VIIIe-XXe siècle (1993), Eglise et Cité. Histoire du Droit canonique (1994), Droit privé romain (1998), etc.