This fascinating collection of essays documents a conference (associated with an exhibition) held in 2017 to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of Julius Echter of Mespelbrunn (18 March 1545–9 September 1617), prince-bishop of Würzburg, 1573–1627. The twelve substantive essays, complemented by an afterword, explore how the understanding and practice of episcopacy in the Holy Roman Empire changed during the period of Echter's episcopate. Echter's controversial episcopate is naturally a key theme, but the lives and ministries of many of his contemporaries are also examined. The volume documents the changes in understanding of the episcopate in the wake of the Council of Trent, and the challenges posed by the German prince-bishoprics to the Tridentine reforms, but also explores Protestant engagement with church leadership and authority structures across the Holy Roman Empire.

Early modern German dioceses were unusual in Western Europe for having retained bishops who were also territorial princes; as territorial rulers, the spiritual princes were of equal standing with secular rulers in the structures of the Holy Roman Empire, and the three archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier were also imperial electors. A bishop thus exercised spiritual authority over his diocese, which might extend over several secular territories, but was also the ruler of the territory known as the Hochstift (or Erzstift in the case of archbishoprics). Consequently, it was a requirement in most German dioceses that a candidate for the episcopate must be a member of the established German nobility, and in some important dioceses the episcopal elections were effectively dynastic appointments. Ordination was far less important than the candidate's birth. As such, the Council of Trent's requirement that bishops be ordained stood in tension with German practice. The first seven articles in the volume tease out the relationship between the Tridentine ideal, discussed by the late Peter Walter, the requirement that bishops should have received a theological education, as considered by Rainald Becker, and their dual role as ‘spiritual shepherds’ and ‘secular princes’, considered – on the basis of representations of German bishops in eulogies, and on coins and medals – by Bettina Braun. While Rainald Becker observes a transition from the representation of bishops as humanist trained lawyers to a more overtly clerical dress, Braun concludes that the bishops were more often presented as secular than as spiritual rulers. The economic tensions associated with the bishops’ dual roles are discussed by Mark Häberlein, who finds that while the economic challenges facing secular territories and spiritual territories were similar, Counter-Reformation measures were not infrequently introduced in the latter even if they were to the territory's economic disadvantage. Bishops who primarily saw themselves as territorial princes were often not ordained, and therefore did not themselves ordain or perform other sacramental acts (although the Council of Trent sought to put a stop to this). Most German dioceses therefore appointed a Weihbischof, or suffragan, often a Franciscan or Dominican, to attend to the sacramental ministry; Klaus Unterberger draws on case studies of the dioceses of Regensburg, Salzburg and Mainz to show how the role of these suffragan bishops changed during the sixteenth century as the ministry of diocesan bishops became sacramental. German dioceses did not exist in isolation from Rome, and Rotraud Becker explores the relationship between the curia and its nuncios, and the German imperial Church, highlighting the nuncios’ relative lack of power. The continuing important role of the German prince-bishops in the political structures of the Holy Roman Empire meant that episcopal appointments were frequently subject to dynastic interests, as Dieter J. Weiß shows.

Taken together, these essays provide ample evidence of the structural challenges faced by Counter-Reformation reforming interests in the Holy Roman Empire, and delineate the context of Julius Echter's episcopate. Two essays, slightly oddly placed in the middle of the volume, focus on Echter himself. In the second, Wolfgang Weiß draws on the epitaph inscribed on Echter's tomb in Würzburg Cathedral (the place of burial of his body; his intestines were interred in the chapel at Marienberg castle and his heart in Würzburg's university chapel) to present Echter's life and ministry as ‘imperial prince and reforming bishop … restorer of the old religion, builder of more than 300 churches, founder and restorer of monasteries and hospitals, patron of the noble and liberal arts, benefactor of our university’ (p. 259). Here is Echter as precisely the kind of reforming prince-bishop described in the opening chapters. Rita Voltmer's substantial study, at nearly ninety pages by far the longest in the collection, reassesses Echter's involvement in witch trials in his territory, arguing against interpreters, including Lyndal Roper, for a more nuanced understanding of Echter as a territorial prince whose response to witch trials varied from case to case and was driven both by his attempts to consolidate his territory and by his confessional politics. The Counter-Reformation, Voltmer argues, was increasingly accompanied by a political problematising of Jews, Protestants, criminals and witches, but the authority of the prince and the force of law on which he could draw was required for individual cases to become mass persecutions. Echter, Voltmer concludes, should not be characterised either as a witch-hunter or as a witch-rescuer.

The final three essays explore how Protestants understood church leadership and the ways in which what had been German prince-bishoprics became integrated into Protestant territories. Markus Wriedt considers Protestant – primarily Lutheran – approaches to spiritual leadership and administration in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the relationship between bishops and superintendents and the development of the landesherrliches Kirchenregiment in which the territorial ruler effectively functioned as bishop. Matthias Asche examines the various instances of German evangelical bishops, the significance of dynastic claims to the Hochstift territories when the ruling family converted to Protestantism and the increasing secularising tendencies in imperial politics between the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Enno Bünz shows the practical outworking of these developments in Saxony, pointing out that before the Reformation the territory of Electoral (Ernestine) Saxony fell under at least nine (arch-) dioceses: Mainz, Halberstadt, Magdeburg, Brandenburg, Merseburg, Meißen, Naumburg, Bamberg, Würzburg and Regensburg. Ducal (Albertine) Saxony was divided between the dioceses of Mainz, Halberstadt, Magdeburg, Merseburg, Meißen, Naumburg and Prague. The complexity of the pre-Reformation ecclesiastical situation meant that by the early sixteenth century, the Elector and the duke of Saxony were in effect already exercising considerable authority in spiritual matters within their respective territories. Fifty years after the Reformation, the majority of these dioceses no longer existed; Bünz explores the processes by which they were dissolved and the Hochstiften drawn under the control of the Saxon rulers. The volume closes with an afterword by Volker Leppin who reflects on the key themes emerging from these essays: secular/spiritual, restoration and reform, inter-church relations.

Taken together, these essays shed considerable light on the complex ecclesiastical and political context in which the Reformation was born. The ecumenical approach is particularly revealing, for it demonstrates that both Protestants and Catholics faced challenges as they sought to maintain and enhance both spiritual leadership and secular administration in an age in which understandings of both were undergoing radical change.