This collection of essays on the Catholic church in eighteenth-century Europe arose from a conference on the topic held at the University of Toronto in November 1974. Although the present volume has been expanded to include countries not covered at that time, we owe a debt to those who participated in the conference and who generously offered suggestions. We are grateful to Harvey Mitchell, Roger Clark, T. J. A. LeGoff, David Smith, William Slottman, Charles Jago, Helen Liebel and Pierre Hurtubise and the other participants for their stimulating contributions to the conference discussions. We express our thanks to Stanley Golowacz for translating chapter 9; the editors are responsible for the English versions of chapters 5, 7 and 10. We also wish to acknowledge the generosity of the Canada Council and Varsity Fund and the History Department of the University of Toronto, which enabled the conference to take place.