Abstract It seemed to be a simple question: ‘No doubt there must be a noticeable ecclesiastical influence on the birth of the secular legislation concerning suicide. Are you prepared to give an overview in just 20 minutes?’ The organisers of the colloquium were aware of the existence of a little guide to the sources of Medieval Learned Law and consequently they approached the author of that little guide. Soon, however, the first problem arose: where to start? Do you know a Latin noun meaning suicide? My Dutch–Latin dictionary gives only the verb: sibi mortem consciscere, which does not exactly open the gates to the sources, nor does the term manus sibi inferre. The dictionaries of Albericus, Brissonius and Calvinus suggest the word mors as a starting point, but the expression mors voluntaria seems to be used only in C. 6.22.2 and in Lactantius, Epitome 34. It is only in the seventeenth century that the substantive autochereia was coined, but the Bibliotheca realis by Lipenius and Jenichen does not refer t...