William Campbell graduated with a B.A. in History from the University of Pittsburgh, before completing his Ph.D. in Medieval History at the University of St Andrews. He has written two volumes for the Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae series and earned the postdoctoral Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies degree from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. He has since returned to the University of Pittsburgh to teach.

• Acknowledgements; List of maps; Abbreviations; Introduction. Pastoral care in the thirteenth century; Part I. Pastors and People: 1. Growth, crisis, and recovery: the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries; 2. Parish clergy; 3. The coming of the friars; 4. Monks and canons regular; Part II. The Processes of Pastoral Care: 5. Preaching and catechesis; 6. Sacramental and liturgical pastoral care; 7. Confession and penance; Part III. The Landscape of Pastoral Care: 8. Towards a geography of pastoral care; 9. Provincial government from Canterbury and York; 10. The diocese of Lincoln; 11. The diocese of Exeter; 12. The diocese of Carlisle; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

'Campbell's study illuminates what scholars have been trying to see for a long time - how people experienced pastoral care. He notes in his introduction that the last holistic study of the thirteenth-century English church was J. R. H. Moorman's 1945 Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century. Campbell has written an exceedingly good replacement.' Beth Allison Barr, American Historical Review