This chapter sets out the history of the process of electing the pope, including the development of voting rules, procedures, sites of election, and a wider electoral culture. The basic format for the modern papal election evolved gradually over a period from 1059 to the 1400s, with the first “conclaves” taking place in the mid-thirteenth century. In contrast to papal elections, papal resignations have been rare, with most occurring during the first Christian millennium. The question of how a pope might relinquish office nevertheless still interested canonists until long after this date, and rules about how popes might resign were incorporated into the twentieth-century codes of canon law even before Benedict XVI dramatically invoked them in 2013.