This book is the product of two scholarly gatherings, both inspired by the late Timothy Reuter's influential article, ‘Ein Europa der Bischöfe,’ published in 2000 (and here translated into English for the first time). Reuter had argued that during the tenth and eleventh centuries, throughout Europe, bishops functioned largely as independent rulers within their own dioceses, endowed with a kind of charismatic authority and owing relatively few obligations even to their ecclesiastical and royal superiors. From this perspective – as Ludger Körntgen suggests here – we might do better to study the role of kings in ‘a bishop-centered framework’, rather than continuing to focus on the role of bishops within kingdoms. The essays in this volume pursue this agenda with special reference to Germany and England. The first two contributions trace shifts in the relationship between bishops and the world of kings on the continent between the eighth and the tenth century. Monika Suchan examines the ways in which Carolingian kings took on the traditional episcopal obligation to admonish and advise their subjects, and shows how that shared obligation disappeared by the Ottonian period. Theo Riches traces the ‘changing political horizons’ of the gesta episcoporum – accounts of the deeds of bishops. While Carolingian gesta placed the bishops whose careers they described within a broadly imperial framework, by the tenth century the focus had narrowed to the bishop's own diocese, understood as a ‘free-standing, semi-autonomous’ unit. The next four essays all explore the difficulties and opportunities faced by bishops during succession crises. Ernst-Dieter Hehl reminds us that German bishops could never be sure how active intervention in a political dispute might affect their own future position. As a result, they often chose to remain passive observers during succession crises. Dominik Wassenhoven, on the other hand, argues that imperial bishops did sometimes intervene in these disputes, albeit cautiously and not necessarily as a unified group. In England, as Catherine Cubitt points out, bishops (especially the archbishop of Canterbury) could play an important role by defining the legitimacy of various candidates for the throne, as well as by providing or withholding the ritual of royal consecration. However, these bishops acted in alliance with royal women and leading laymen to determine the outcome of a series of succession crises. Pauline Stafford more directly compares the role played by English queens and bishops, suggesting that both groups wielded authority and faced danger during succession crises, even though both authority and danger might be gendered in very different ways. Finally, Joyce Hill dissects a single manuscript (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ms 190) to reveal the ways in which two English bishops understood their own roles in Church and Christian society. The volume concludes with a useful bibliography of works published since 1980 on bishops in medieval Europe – again, with a particular focus on Germany and England.