In Trent: What Happened at the Council, Georgetown professor John W. O'Malley provides a comprehensive yet readable history of the years from 1545 to 1563, when the Catholic Church struggled to clarify its position against the challenges of Martin Luther. O'Malley keeps Trent's often lofty theological concerns well-grounded by beginning with the practical problems of convening such a council in the first place. What city had room to house the hundreds of churchmen expected to attend? Would the city have library resources adequate to their needs? Did it have enough fodder for all the horses?
Trent, in northern Italy, met none of these needs--but its location offered political advantages, and for a church desperate to maintain both the religious and political health of Europe, politics mattered. As O'Malley makes clear, the threat of war permeated nearly every laborious decision the Council undertook, affecting who participated, who drafted the resulting decrees and which matters of faith and practice were addressed--or, in the case of papal authority, which matters were ignored.
Trent is not an easy book, presupposing a background in the history of the Protestant Reformation that not all readers possess. Those who do, however, will find that Trent offers a history of unprecedented clarity, illuminating one of the most crucial yet ill-understood periods in the history of the Catholic Church. --Dani Alexis Ryskamp, blogger at The Book Cricket