Funeral sermons, writes Jan Turinski on the back cover of his book, were central media of representation and memory in the early modern period. Catholic eulogies particularly distinguished themselves by their glorifying portrayal of the deceased and, because of this, were characterised already by contemporaries as fabrications. As a result, scholars have tended to bypass them in favour of other sources. Turinski instead turns to the three ecclesiastical electorates in the Holy Roman Empire – meaning the prince-archbishoprics of Mainz, Cologne and Trier – and takes up the funeral sermons written for the twenty-five electors who ruled them between the 1648 Peace of Westphalia and the electorates’ secularisation circa 1803. He proposes a change of perspective, namely, to approach the sermons as sources mediating norms and reflecting what contemporaries understood to be the ideal character of a prince-archbishop.

The book breaks things down into five main chapters, each one proceeding in a fashion familiar to German academic historical writing – systematic, methodical and detailed, with lengthy footnotes and a brief recapitulation at a chapter's end. Chapter ii highlights how the ecclesiastical electors embodied a variety of ambitions and functions. As members of noble families their occupation of the cathedral seat perpetuated dynastic interests. As spiritual shepherds they issued ecclesiastical ordinances, decrees and liturgical guidelines and had the power to anoint. As territorial lords they governed and administered sizeable lands and many subjects, often from a residential town that was not the cathedral town. As electoral and imperial princes they upheld their esteemed place as ‘pillars of the Empire’ (p. 64). The chapter closes with discussion of the early modern ideal of a bishop and prince. Based on the Tridentine Council's decrees and Erasmian principles, a prince could only be good when he was a good Christian, meaning guided by piety, the fear of God, justice, temperance and goodness.

Chapter iii turns to the organisation, production and distribution of the funeral sermons for the electoral archbishops. Funeral sermons were crafted and delivered by those who had become quasi-specialists of the genre. Authors framed the sermons around the deceased's biography but also wove in biblical stories, texts from Church Fathers and other writings that tied neatly to events in his own life. Cathedral preachers, whose posts had been created back in the early fifteenth century, then delivered them. Most of the preachers were regular clergy (most often Jesuits) while the remaining quarter were secular clergy. Further details follow in the chapter concerning when the process of writing the funeral sermon began (right after death), when and where the sermon was published (usually within weeks and at a press close by), how many copies were made and at what cost (most often 500–1,500 at a cost of hundreds of Reichstaler), how many heard the funeral sermon and what rank in society they held, and how far the published sermon was distributed.

Chapter iv explores the eulogy as an act of state by placing the funeral sermon in the context of the death of a ruler. Funeral sermons operated at once as a liturgical-sacral, Catholic eulogistic rite that was oriented toward the next world and as a highly political event that served a powerful function oriented toward this world. An ecclesiastical elector's death initiated a lengthy, formal process that involved preparing the body for burial, a parade, decorations and lighting as well as providing sufficient time for distant attendees to arrive, materials to be transported and the burial site to be readied. In sum, eulogies and burial ceremonies were central festivals in pre-modern times (p. 144). They required a lot of planning.

Chapter v (which, at 225 pages, accounts for half of the book) considers the ideal portrait of a prince-archbishop. It is a gift of heaven, said the Cologne cathedral preacher in 1784, that spiritual and temporal power would be placed in a single hand (p. 195). Princes stood as the first subjects under God and therefore it was especially important that they live in the fear of God (p. 197). Funeral sermons praised ecclesiastical electors for the right they possessed to elect the Holy Roman emperor and emphasised the importance of political and personal closeness and loyalty to him, not least by providing the imperial house with aid and service. As territorial sovereigns, prince-archbishops were – again, ideally – to embody the role of ‘pater patriae’ (p. 236) by supporting the weak in society, caring for the poor, orphans and widows, ensuring subsistence in the land and protecting its people from dangers. They had to provide secular buildings that cared for the commonweal (for example, houses for the poor, orphans and ill) and represented temporal authority (for example, hunting lodges, residential palaces) and also ecclesiastical buildings that promoted spiritual salvation (for example, parish and pilgrimage churches and chapels, seminaries for priests). They needed to ensure justice in their lands, sound administration, educational excellence and a flourishing economy via well-maintained infrastructure. As bishops they were to administer the sacraments, exercise their power of episcopal consecration, instruct with right teaching, defend the faith, oppose both doctrinal error and radical Enlightenment thought (pp. 306–18) and ensure the staffing of all parish posts. As members of dynastic families, they were to be exemplars of their renowned house and heritage. Finally, in both the art of living and the art of dying, the prince-archbishops were to balance intelligence and wisdom as well as Tridentine claims and imperial realities. They were to prepare for death not shortly before it arrived but rather properly in advance of it. Toward the end of the chapter is a brief discussion about how certain subject Protestant communities within the electorates commemorated their Catholic sovereigns following their deaths (pp. 401–10).

Chapter vi explores funeral monuments in their paper, stone and wooden forms. Headlining these was the castrum doloris, literally a ‘castle of grief’ or ‘sorrow’. The castrum doloris was a large structure that sheltered the bier in a funeral setting. Framed by pillars, crowned with fabrics and adorned with decorations, images and texts, it dominated the church interior once in place. The castrum doloris had roots in the medieval chapelle ardente or chapel lit by candles in which the corpse of a high-ranking person lay in state. Indeed, in one 1716 case the castrum doloris was surrounded by approximately four thousand wax candles (p. 425). The castrum doloris communicated in visual form what a funeral sermon did in written and audible form, namely the temporal and spiritual power exercised by an elector (p. 432). Appendices provide illustrative examples of the funeral monuments discussed in chapter vi.

To be sure, the book informs a reader deeply of the funeral culture surrounding the ecclesiastical electors. Yet there is a sense of missed opportunity here. The book treats the subject in a certain vacuum. Its geographical focus, the middle Rhine, was among the more denominationally diverse regions of the Empire, an area where a checkerboard of large and small Protestant and Catholic principalities nestled against one another. Moreover, Protestant and Catholic royal courts in the Empire in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not settle into a static, peaceful coexistence after the disruptions in the age of the Reformation (1517–1648) but rather entered a new phase of relations fraught with old and new tensions, manoeuverings and fear of conversions in royal families. Had, then, the book brought the funeral culture for other territorial princes into the discussion, it likely would have yielded illuminating comparisons and insights. Did the funeral cultures for Catholic sovereigns and those for Protestant ones influence one another? Did dynastic interests and territorial governance cause their respective funeral cultures to share more in common and, to that degree, transcend the Catholic-Protestant divide? As compared to Catholic electors, how were Protestant electors depicted in funeral sermons in terms of their relationship to the emperor? Such questions lie outside the parameters of the book. But for the scholar who takes them up, Turinski has provided much with which to start.