Les Cérémoniaux catholiques is a collection of essays on the nature, form, function and significance of the type of liturgical book known as a ‘Ceremonial’. It presents the first results of an interdisciplinary research project ‘Liturgy and society in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: an historical and musicological reading of liturgical rites’, directed by the editors of this volume. The aims of the project are to study diocesan and monastic liturgical practices through the perspective of cultural anthropology, using a documentary source typical of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but which is largely neglected today: the Ceremonial. Ceremonials are essentially handbooks describing the exterior gestures, postures, movements, methods of reciting and singing liturgy and offices, or, as Jean-Yves Hamelin defines, ‘the ensemble of prescriptions for the exterior forms of the actions and functions of divine service’. They were used alongside other liturgical books such as breviaries, missals, rituals and processionals. Tridentine Catholicism was greatly concerned with the restoration of dignity to the celebration of divine office, as heightened emphasis on the eucharist reinforced the importance of the ritual and ceremonial of the mass. Part of the Church's ‘restoration of ceremony’ was the publication of the Caeremoniale episcoporum in 1600. This was to be the basis of numerous diocesan and monastic Ceremonials in the following two centuries, as bishops and religious orders applied its ‘order’ to their own liturgical practices. The present volume contains twenty-three essays on the nature and use of Ceremonials in the French-speaking regions of Europe. A first section of the book is on the ‘history’ and typology of this type of liturgical work, with essays on the development of printed Ceremonials from 1600 to 1789 (A. Meunier) and case studies of those used in the chapel royal at Versailles (A. Maral), of the diocese of Bayeux (Fr. Auzeil) and on the developing ceremonial at Lourdes in the nineteenth century (R. Campos). A second section is on the development of liturgy and on the contemporary debates that this occasioned. Case studies of Bayeux (B. Dompnier), Clermont (S. Gomis) and Paris (X. Bisaro, C. Maire) dioceses show the importance of prescribed Ceremonials in establishing the authority of bishops. Looking outside of France, there are also interesting essays on contemporary debates around the proposed liturgical reforms of Benedict xiv (D. Julia) and the reform of the Genevan Psalter in the French-speaking Reformed Church (Chr. Grosse). A third section is on the role of Ceremonials in religious orders. The importance of ceremony in establishing monastic identities and traditions and the increasing pressure to ‘Romanise’ liturgy is seen here, with studies of the congregation of Saint-Maur (D.-O. Hurel), female Cistercians in the Liège region (M.-E. Henneau) and among Franciscan congregations (F. Guilloux). A fourth section is on the role of music in Ceremonials and liturgical offices. This is particularly interesting, with essays on the role of the organist in liturgy (E. Kocevar), of sung liturgy in Paris with a case study of the offices of holy week (X. Bisaro and S. Gaudelus) and a special study of the developments of Salutations of the holy sacrament across the seventeenth century (A. Meunier). Finally, Ph. Loupès provides a good conclusion, summarising the main findings of this wide-ranging collection of essays. Liturgy, as a mark of identity and as a means of enforcing authority, for bishops, religious orders and even reformed churches, is stressed. The volume includes forty plates with commentaries by J.-Y. Hameline. There are two indices, of people, places and religious congregations, and of liturgical seasons and offices. There is also an annotated index-list of extant printed Ceremonials of 1600–1846. As the editors state in the introduction, liturgical books such as Ceremonials should be considered as a valuable source for the history of religious practices, for intellectual debates at the heart of Catholicism and for relations between Church and society, at all periods in history. The volume will be of interest to historians of the book, to those researching liturgical practices and to specialists in the Counter- and Catholic Reformations more generally.