This volume of fifteen essays in French and English, with an introduction and conclusion, is the product of a conference held at Avignon in 2007 that brought together the second gathering of a group of scholars working on consistorial cases across the Reformed Churches within Europe. As might be expected, given the interests of the three editors, the preponderance of essays deal with aspects of the French and French-speaking Churches, though Hungary, the Netherlands and Scotland are also represented as well as the stranger churches within England. In addition to the geographical spread, there is a long chronological range extending the discussion well into the eighteenth century. This presents a very different world where in Saintonge (1751–61), as Poton shows, the Reformed Church was re-establishing itself and reintegrating its members into their Protestant traditions, and in the Swiss Pays de Vaud Goy details the challenges to the consistory from Enlightenment ideas of moral control. Although consistories have tended to be dismissed as oppressive and patriarchal bodies, there are some surprises among their lists of ‘fans’. Kingdom demonstrates that in addition to the predictable supporters of a strong consistory in Geneva, such as John Knox's well-quoted praise as the perfect school of Christ, some converted Anabaptists were also enthusiasts. Pollman presents a nuanced study indicating how some Dutch women, especially unmarried women and widows, welcomed and even chose the consistory chamber as a means for securing and repairing their own honour. It is significant that, despite censure and exclusion being prominent in its title, most of the book's essays stress the concern among the Reformed Churches to employ the consistory to achieve reconciliation and, as Moreil's essay is entitled, ‘chercher consollation’. As Todd explains when examining the Scottish burgh of Perth, there was a very marked reluctance to move to full excommunication that involved serious social exclusion and instead years and great pains were taken ‘travailing’ with the sinner to bring him back within the body of the congregation. Even ministers who strayed were not automatically dealt with more harshly than the laity, and Chareyre demonstrates that reintegration via a change of parish was the norm. ‘Negotiation’ more than repression seems to have characterised Reformed practice, however clear and uncompromising the theological goals of discipline might appear at first glance.