The episcopate of Cuthbert as bishop of Lindisfarne was a product of a time of great change in the Northumbrian Church in the late seventh century. Bede's Ecclesiastical history and Stephen's Life of Wilfrid make it clear that the expulsion of Wilfrid, bishop of York and sole bishop of the Northumbrians, in 678 (HE v. 19; VW 24) opened up the Northumbrian diocese to large-scale ecclesiastical reorganisation. Wilfrid's vast see was divided and new bishops appointed. In 664, as a young man, Wilfrid had played a significant part at the Council of Whitby in bringing about the expulsion of Colmán, Aidán's successor as bishop of Lindisfarne, the termination of the Columban mission and the replacement of the see of Lindisfarne by that of York; but the bishops who replaced Wilfrid were prepared to deal sensitively with the legacy of Aidán's mission in a post-Council of Whitby era. Bosa, trained at Whitby under Abbess Hild who had been instructed in the religious life by Aidán, became bishop of Deira at York; Eata, abbot of Lindisfarne, one of Aidán's Northumbrian disciples and formerly abbot of the monastery of Melrose which had been founded in the time of the Columban mission, became bishop of Bernicia with his episcopal seat variously at Hexham and Lindisfarne; and Eadhæsd, a former companion of Aidán's disciple Chad (HE iii. 28), was made bishop of Lindsey (HE iv. 12). When Lindsey was lost to the Mercians in 679 Eadhæd was made bishop of the short-lived see of Ripon [HE iv. 12), and in 681 Trumwine, whose antecedents are unknown but who later retired to Whitby, became bishop of Abercorn on the Forth [HE iv. 12, 26).

Much has been written about the masters of theology at the University of Paris in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and their views on the nature of theology. Less work has been done on their view of themselves as a social group and what they were supposed to do with their distinctive kind of knowledge, however they defined it. Furthermore, analysis of their self-image has remained very general, included within studies of masters in all subjects in all universities over several centuries. This broad approach is entirely justified in that many sources deal with learning in general and because study of the Paris theologians contributes to wider debate about the social and political significance of medieval universities and intellectuals. It is, however, important to examine the self-image of the masters of theology at Paris specifically because, whatever the wider contemporary ideals, the world of learning was in reality far from homogeneous and harmonious.

The ecclesiastical history of early seventeenth-century Protestant Germany presents a generally gloomy picture. Lutherans and Calvinists, locked in increasingly uncompromising fratricidal controversy, divide the heartland of the Reformation against itself, thereby unwittingly preparing for the Habsburg reconquest of subsequent decades. In the light of this ensuing disaster, the heroes of the era are naturally identified as those few figures who attempted to combat the leading tendency of their age: the ecclesiastic irenicists, who appealed to the quarrelling theological groups to set aside their differences and join forces in defending the advances of the Reformation. In this they were destined to fail, but modern historians have nevertheless credited them with helping to break the ground later cultivated by the more successful proponents of reconciliation in the nineteenth century and the yet more broad-minded ecumenists of the twentieth.

In 1858 Lourdes was the site of a famous series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous (1844–79). These visions became the basis of one of the major religious shrines of the contemporary world. The miraculous spring at the Grotto of Lourdes is visited by tens of thousands of pilgrims every year and the story of St Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes has been thoroughly disseminated throughout the Catholic world. Despite the fame of Lourdes, and despite the dramatic foundation of the shrine during the mid nineteenth century, the events at Lourdes have received relatively little attention from historians. A scholarly consideration of Lourdes is included in Thomas Kselman's Miracles and prophecies in nineteenth-century France. This book initiated research into several neglected fields and until it appeared writers who made mention of Lourdes, such as Marina Warner and Judith Devlin, were obliged to rely upon works of Catholic history. The apparitions at Lourdes and the life of Bernadette have given rise to a vast devotional literature, some of which has been carefully researched, but it serves the purposes of hagiography rather than historical enquiry. A voluminous quantity of contemporary documents relevant to these events is in existence in the archives of both Church and State, and some collections of these primary sources have been published.