It is a fact too little appreciated that the English Church enjoyed freedom of episcopal election for only a very brief period. Such freedom was first granted in King John's charter of 1214, itself negotiated by an archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, who had not been freely elected but postulated by the pope. Before this, and save for the isolated instance of Canterbury, all English bishoprics lay, in effect, at the king's disposal. Even thereafter, and as Katherine Harvey demonstrates in this concise, definitive and remarkable account, after less than a century, free election was itself edged out by papal provision. Provision of bishops, Harvey suggests, originated in the Italy of Pope Innocent iii and spread north of the Alps slowly but inexorably. Having no basis in theory or theology to oppose it, kings such as Edward ii fell back upon King John's 1214 freedom of election charter as a historic precedent allowing continued royal supervision. But paradox succeeded paradox. Thus, the bishops provided by the papacy were very seldom outsiders. A majority were courtiers or royal administrators, with an increasing preponderance of royal diplomats capable of seeking favours in Avignon. Moreover, kings found it more convenient to negotiate with a single authority, in Rome or Avignon, than with the previous multiplicity of capitular or metropolitan interests. In this way, after a brief golden age of the election of pastoral or scholar bishops under Edward i (1272–1309), England returned to the more conservative traditions of the twelfth or early thirteenth century. Not since Gibbs and Lang's Bishops and reform (1934) has a monograph approached the English episcopate in so comprehensive a fashion. En route, the criticism generally raised against such studies – that they are too Anglocentric, too dependent upon the chancery evidences – is silenced by a chapter comparing English elections to those in France, Scotland and Italy. By contrast to William the Lion's treatment of the Church, in Geoffrey Barrow's evocative phrase, ‘the Constitutions of Clarendon read like a Gregorian Tract’. Not everything here is perfect. Roger of Wendover should be cited from Coxe or Luard, not from the Giles translation. Elsewhere, the citation of primary sources would be better made direct rather than at second hand. The cathedral of Sées hovered on the fringes of those whose bishops were elected by regulars. Provision was broadly and stridently criticised by English proctors at the Council of Lyons (1245). There was rather more encouragement to the descent of the Holy Spirit than Harvey's administrative eye discerns, with the ‘sortes biblicae’ as a reminder that electoral bodies followed in the tradition of Matthias, Pentecost and Christ's Apostles. Nor is it ever wise to allow publishers to reprint in black and white charts originally presented in colour. Even so, significant questions are posed and answered here. English electoral procedures, Harvey suggests, as at Ely in the 1250s, ensured a continued English influence over papal law long after the supposed end of the golden age of the decretalists, in the 1190s. Complications in procedure were common. But since only the richest chapters could meet the costs of disputed elections, full-blown disputes were comparatively rare. Only one in ten elections was appealed to Rome. Yet such appeals stood an excellent chance of success, with the pope, for example, confirming only three out of the nine candidates appealed under Henry iii. This is an excellent book, henceforth the leading authority in its field. It has implications well beyond the confines of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England.