John S. Ott is Professor of Medieval European History at Portland State University. He is the founder and current President of the international scholarly society Episcopus: Society for the Study of Bishops and Secular Clergy in the Middle Ages (episcopus.org). He is the editor of The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages (with Anna Trumbore Jones, 2007) and Saintly Bishops and Bishops' Saints (with Trpimir Vedriš, 2012). He was the recipient in 2002 of the Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize, awarded by the Medieval Academy of America, for Outstanding First Article in Medieval Studies. He holds a Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, St Michael's College, Toronto, Ontario, and has been the recipient of multiple fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities.

'Written in an interesting way, offering to the reader a huge amount of information which is not only emphasized but also analysed by the author, the book of John Ott entitled: Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe, c.1050–1150, published in 2015 at Cambridge University Press is surely an important contribution not only for the study and understanding of the history of Medieval Church in the aforementioned space, but also for the medieval history, because it contains references to the interference between religion and politics.' Iuliu-Marius Morariu, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia

• 1. The bishop and his authority; 2. Becoming bishop: clerical culture and episcopal formation in the archdiocese of Reims around 1100; 3. Restless flocks: the challenges to episcopal authority; 4. Band of brothers: episcopal networks in the archdiocese of Reims; 5. Personal histories: the revival of archiepiscopal historiography at Reims in the eleventh century; 6. Sanctity and history in a border diocese: the vita of Lietbert of Cambrai (1051–76); 7. Urban space, memory, and episcopal authority: the bishops of Amiens in peace and conflict, 1073–1164; 8. Bishops and the word; 9. Toil and togetherness in the vineyards of the Lord; 10. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.