Election and Appointment of Bishops at the Council of Trent

During the Council of Trent, different opinions with regard to the practices of appointing and electing bishops were expressed. There were those who aimed at elaborating a centralised process, and others who sought to accord greater weight to national and local episcopates. The decree issued by the council in 1563 sanctioned a compromise: the qualities required of the candidates would be screened in partibus through procedures established by provincial synods, with the assent of Rome. Thirty years later, however, the pontiffs took back the reins on the issue and imposed a process that, in many respects, deviated from the intentions of the council fathers. This essay, in addition to reconstructing the events, discusses the main historiographical contributions to the subject and offers a contextualization of the affair in relation to the broader problem of the council’s application in the early modern church.