Kristina Sessa is Assistant Professor of History and Associate Director for the Center of the Study of Religion at Ohio State University. She was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome in 2001 and a Fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University in 2006–7. She is the author of several articles on bishops, Christianity and the domestic sphere and edited a special volume of the Journal of Early Christian Studies.

"The book is a significant contribution, and its invigorating thesis will help shape future discussion of a topic of central importance. --BMCR

• Introduction: household management and the Bishop of Rome; 1. The late Roman household in Italy; 2. From dominion to dispensatio: stewardship as an elite ideal; 3. Primus cultor: episcopal householding in theory and practice; 4. Overseeing the overseer: bishops and the lay household; 5. Cultivating the clerical household: marriage, property and inheritance; 6. Mistrusting the bishop: succession, stewardship and sex in the Laurentian schism; 7. The household and the bishop: authority, competition and cooperation in the gesta martyrum; Conclusions.

Kristina Sessa is Assistant Professor of History and Associate Director for the Center of the Study of Religion at Ohio State University. She was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome in 2001 and a Fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University in 2006–7. She is the author of several articles on bishops, Christianity and the domestic sphere and edited a special volume of the Journal of Early Christian Studies.

"The book is a significant contribution, and its invigorating thesis will help shape future discussion of a topic of central importance. --BMCR

• Introduction: household management and the Bishop of Rome; 1. The late Roman household in Italy; 2. From dominion to dispensatio: stewardship as an elite ideal; 3. Primus cultor: episcopal householding in theory and practice; 4. Overseeing the overseer: bishops and the lay household; 5. Cultivating the clerical household: marriage, property and inheritance; 6. Mistrusting the bishop: succession, stewardship and sex in the Laurentian schism; 7. The household and the bishop: authority, competition and cooperation in the gesta martyrum; Conclusions.

Kristina Sessa is Assistant Professor of History and Associate Director for the Center of the Study of Religion at Ohio State University. She was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Rome in 2001 and a Fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University in 2006–7. She is the author of several articles on bishops, Christianity and the domestic sphere and edited a special volume of the Journal of Early Christian Studies.

"The book is a significant contribution, and its invigorating thesis will help shape future discussion of a topic of central importance. --BMCR

• Introduction: household management and the Bishop of Rome; 1. The late Roman household in Italy; 2. From dominion to dispensatio: stewardship as an elite ideal; 3. Primus cultor: episcopal householding in theory and practice; 4. Overseeing the overseer: bishops and the lay household; 5. Cultivating the clerical household: marriage, property and inheritance; 6. Mistrusting the bishop: succession, stewardship and sex in the Laurentian schism; 7. The household and the bishop: authority, competition and cooperation in the gesta martyrum; Conclusions.