The essential thesis of this book is directed against the false assumption that from the fourth century the role of the laity in episcopal ordination waned in favour of a system in which the bishops of the province in council with their metropolitan replaced the consent of the clergy and people in episcopal appointments and consecrations. Notwithstanding collections of canons made from around 370 onwards, the choice still remained in the hands of local communities. Canons of Nicaea and Antioch, or the provisions of the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, that provide for at least three bishops if not the bishops of the whole province supervised by the metropolitan are convincingly argued to apply to exceptions rather than the rule as are interventions to depose unsatisfactory bishops. These were not new developments but simply codified what had been the case before, namely that the whole people should gather with the clergy and it is their election with the consecration approved and performed by the provincial bishops that should determine succession in various sees. Norton exhaustively and painstakingly marshals his evidence. He is aware of the problem of deposition for heresy of popular bishops yet even here, he emphasises, a ‘catholic’ bishop such as Proterius (451–7), appointed as a result of Theodosius' intervention, only with difficulty took up his see against popular support for the deposed Dioscorus of Alexandria (444–51). Even in the case of Damasus and Ursinus (in 366), imperial intervention occurred only late which implies that imperial concerns were not the origin of the dispute. Although it must be acknowledged that there would be imperial concerns over the appointments of the major archbishops (‘patriarch’ in a strict sense is used only from Justinian onwards) of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria etc, such influence was not and could not be exercised systematically over every see: the impression that it might is falsely created by the notion that episcopal structures closely paralleled Diocletian's secular administrative structure of prefectures, dioceses and provinces. But ecclesiastical and secular administrative divisions corresponded at this date only at the provincial level. Norton continuously makes reference to the role of different groups in different situations such as the magistrates (curiales), the aristocracy, the clergy, the plebs etc. He often speaks of these as distinct groups though he is well aware, from Cyprian's time, of the role of the system of Roman patronage. In other words, it is clear that the distinctiveness of such groups as necessarily rival interests at least in a naïve, Marxist sense was quite alien to the ancient view of such interests or indeed their concrete operation. It is quite clear how Cyprian's great wealth obliged his flock to acknowledge him as their patron, even though he tries sometimes to suggest in feigned humility that the situation is the reverse: that it was his personal funds subsidising church funds that could ensure that his clergy could guarantee financial support for the stantes themselves and their families, which gave them a considerable material advantage over the lapsi. It would be interesting to construct a picture of episcopal elections in patron-client terms to see how ‘popular’ indeed was popular resistance, if indeed the story could be told from the surviving sources. We often lack sources of the candour of Cyrprian's surviving epistles. Norton has contributed a substantial study. The depth and comprehensiveness of its documentation makes this a major work of reference for students of this subject quite apart from the importance of the substantive thesis that the author cogently argues