Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen from 1248 to 1276, left a rich legacy for the historian of the thirteenth-century Church. For twenty-one years of his archiepiscopate, he kept a register recording details of his administration, especially of his visitations of the province, and also preserving copies of documents, letters to and from the king and the pope, and various statutes that the bishop wished to have to hand for easy reference. An edition of this register (BN, fonds latin ms 245) was published by Theodose Bonnin as long ago as 1852, and a translation of high quality (but not including all the documentary material) by Sydney M. Brown in 1964, cited respectively by Adam Davis as RV and RER. The diocese of Rouen also had a polyptych or census, dating from the time of Archbishop Pierre de Colmieu (1236–44), which listed the parishes, patrons, value of the benefices, number of parishioners, names of the incumbents and of the prelate who had instituted. This census was brought up to date and amended by Eudes's secretaries. Such a mass of material might daunt a faint heart; Adam Davis, however, has revelled in bringing Eudes, one might say, into the twenty-first century – there has been no biography of the archbishop since that of Pierre Andrieu-Guitrancourt which came out in 1938 – placing Eudes within the intellectual and reforming circles of his day in the light of recent research. Eudes was a reformer who saw visitation as the main instrument whereby he could attempt to implement the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council on pastoral care. A scholar from the University of Paris, he was one of a growing number of intellectuals, often friars or those in close sympathy with them, raised to the episcopate, whose aims were a better educated parish clergy, careful of their flocks, and living decent, if not always exemplary, lives. There was a certain contradiction of purpose between a bishop who was essentially a worldly man, living in some style as a royal counsellor, the focus of attention in the diocese, and the owner of vast estates, and the humble friar following an ideal where possessions were denied and a simple, prayerful life essential. Eudes's apparent solution of this dilemma has led to Davis's assessment of him as a ‘holy bureaucrat’. Eudes was no extremist. He maintained that temporal wealth was not necessarily evil. He saw the importance of a well-ordered parish or religious institution depending often on proper financial management. He showed himself moderate and sensible in his dealings with people. On the other hand, he could be quite high-minded and uncompromising in pursuing what he deemed to be his rights on visitation and on metropolitical powers. As Davis concludes of Eudes, ‘It was, moreover, the Franciscan's piety that fuelled his desire for an efficient bureaucratic system that would unlock the gates to salvation.’ This is a well-constructed book, judicious in its treatment of the main issues, and endorsing the contemporary opinion of those who argued that friars were needed among the bishops of the Church. It is highly recommendable and should command a wide readership.