Although the title of this collection of essays could have been more precise (no Lutheran or Anglican episcopates are discussed), the temporal and geographical range of its local studies, together with the variety of issues that it covers, make it highly useful in explaining both the successes and the failures of the Catholic Reformation.
In addition to describing historians' treatment of bishops from the Middle Ages to the present day, editor Jennifer DeSilva's introduction gives a brief history of the institution from early Christian times to the sixteenth century. Noting that the concept of the “ideal bishop” was centuries old prior to the Council of Trent, she reminds readers that the early modern bishop's functions lay along a wide spectrum, from the overtly spiritual to the blatantly secular. It is an obvious point, but one that bears repeating.
In their essays Raymond A. Powell and Hans Cools study the selection of bishops, the conflicting motives behind such selection, and the results for Counter-Reformation politics. Powell's essay on Mary Tudor's episcopate notes that the Queen personally chose her bishops, and that occupation of a pre-Edwardian see or a record of personal loyalty to Mary could at times trump doctrinal orthodoxy or even permit absenteeism and nepotism. Cools, in describing the social origins of episcopal appointees in the Habsburg Netherlands prior to Pope Paul IV's 1559 bull Super Universas, notes that most of these bishops were from prominent noble families who were well-connected to the Habsburg monarchy, which increasingly came to control appointments to ecclesiastical offices. Powell concludes that the Marian bishops' resistance to the Elizabethan settlement was less the result of the bishops' Catholicism having been stiffened during Mary's reign than of Mary's deliberate choice of men who had previously resisted the Edwardian Reformation. Powell further concludes that retention of Catholic ceremony was as important, if not more important, than papal supremacy as a motive for resistance. In a similar vein, Cools points out that the replacement of the noble, politically connected bishops with more reform-minded theologians after 1559 both helped to trigger the Dutch Revolt and strengthened the spirit of the Counter-Reformation in those areas of the Netherlands that stayed Catholic.
Four essays illustrate the extent of and limitations to the effectiveness of bishops in Italy from 1513 to 1697, and each deals with different but related concerns. In discussing Cesare Gambara's difficulties as bishop of Tortona in northwestern Italy, 1548–1591, Antonella Perin and John Alexander focus on ecclesiastical patronage and cathedral architecture as they describe the construction of a new cathedral for Tortona. Gambara opposed this new cathedral but was forced to accede to it by a diverse range of patrons. John Christopoulos, by contrast, examines a thorny legal problem as bishops attempted, before, during, and after Sixtus V's bull of 1588 that made abortion a homicide, to take absolution for this sin out of the hands of the confessor by “reserving” it to the bishop. Public unwillingness to face the scandal inherent in travelling to an episcopal center was one barrier to episcopal reservation of absolution for abortion and indeed for Sixtus's more impractical attempt to reserve such absolution for the papacy alone. DeSilva and Celeste McNamara each examine episcopal attempts to rule effectively despite absence. In her study of Paris de Grassi, who ruled Pesaro largely in absentia from 1513 to 1528, DeSilva shows that, even if a bishop did not reside permanently in his diocese, it was possible to provide “a more flexible but equally giving custodial model” (105). On the few occasions when he did visit his diocese, De Grassi initiated new physical construction, held a diocesan synod, and cooperated effectively with lay confraternities. Nearly two centuries later, as McNamara shows, Gregorio Barbarigo had only limited success in implementing Tridentine reforms in Padua. To enforce tighter discipline on the clergy within that large diocese, Barbarigo resurrected a system of local “vicars” who would each supervise a number of parishes as the bishop's surrogates. As two case studies show, the system was only as good as its personnel, and many vicars did not share Barbarigo's reforming zeal.
The two French bishops studied, Francois de Sales, bishop of Geneva from 1602 to 1622, and Sébastien Zamet, Bishop of Langres from 1614 to 1655, show a number of similarities to the Italians. Like Gambara, Zamet found his reform efforts often opposed by lay and clerical interests, but Linda Lierheimer's essay on this reforming bishop focuses particularly on his relations with convents and monasteries, which were backed not simply by local elites but by the papacy and even the French crown. The bishop also found allies within these various groups, including the convents. On the other hand, because the Savoyard Francois de Sales served a diocese where Protestant competition was powerful, Jill Fehleinson's essay focuses on the Tridentine proclamation that “preaching the gospel was the ‘chief duty of the bishops’” (129). Fehleison's analysis of de Sales's tactics in preaching to both Catholics and Protestants is a fine example of “an important dialogue that crossed back and forth across the confessional divide” (144), as it includes the arguments of Calvin and Beza against which de Sales effectively preached and wrote (138–144).
After examining many ways in which Counter-Reformation bishops were resisted, the collection finishes with a fascinating study of how bishops could themselves resist the power of the papacy, the Roman Inquisition, and even the monarchy. In describing papal attempts to try French bishops for Calvinism and later for Jansenism, Jean-Pascal Gay reaffirms the other essayists' portrayal of the Counter-Reformation Church as a mélange of competing jurisdictions in which politics and personal ties, as opposed to doctrinal and legal arguments, were often the key determinants of success.
Each of these essays is useful as a local study, but in reading them together one comes away with a thorough appreciation of the range of challenges faced by the bishops of the Catholic Reformation.
