The ten articles in this volume originated in papers on the Catholic episcopate presented at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Montreal in 2010. They range chronologically from the early sixteenth well into the seventeenth century and thus deal with bishops both before and after the Council of Trent. One is about Mary Tudor's England, five about Italy and the remaining four about other territories on the continent. Spain, Germany and eastern Europe are absent. Although the collection does not pretend, therefore, to provide a comprehensive coverage, its sampling is broad enough and the quality of the scholarship high enough to confirm trends in scholarship that are transforming our understanding of what was going on in Catholicism during that defining epoch. While the articles of course indicate important shifts that occurred as a result of the Council of Trent, or at least in tandem with it, they in effect warn against a too sharp line of demarcation between before and after: the situation was neither as bad before the council nor as reformed after it as was once thought. Reckon we must even here with la longue durée. The articles also show that no decree from on high, no matter by whom issued, carried the day without undergoing stress, strain and reshaping as a result of resistance and the influence of competing authorities. As the decrees of Trent, for instance, passed through the minds and hearts of those who tried to implement them, they were significantly modified and their import invariably had to be negotiated. Thus, as William Hudon points out in his foreword, reform was essentially local and always conditioned by local realities. It was subject to forces in play at specific times and in specific places. This helpful collection shows, once again, that the monochrome image of Catholicism in this era that earlier held sway has deservedly been consigned to the dustbin.