Gabriel Le Bras was one of the twentieth century’s most important French scholars of medieval law and religious sociology and one whose research continues to be fundamental for the study of the medieval church, ecclesiastical institutions, and religious sociology. Born at Paimpol in Brittany on July 23, 1891, Le Bras studied at the Universities of Rennes and Paris and taught at the University of Strasbourg before moving to Paris to occupy the chair of canon law in 1931. A prolific author of more than four hundred works over his long career, Le Bras combined his interests in the history of canon and Roman law with religious sociology in both historical and contemporary contexts as informed by statistical analysis. Influenced by the Annales school, whose proponents sought to break down the barriers between history and other disciplines, Le Bras’s research was characterized by an attempt to understand canon and Roman law in the contexts of the societies that produced and used them both on their own and also as a means to understand the church over the longue durée through its institutions and religion vécue (lived religion).