'The Church and Empire', the theme of Studies in Church History 54, reflects the reality that from its beginnings, the Christian Church has had close, often symbiotic, relationships with empires and imperial power. Initially the Church engaged with the Roman Empire, subsequently in Europe with the Carolingian, Anglo-Norman, Genoese, Venetian and Holy Roman empires, and later - through the Church's global expansion with European empires in the Americas, Africa and Asia - the Spanish, Dutch, French and British empires, and the imperial structures it encountered there. Bringing together the work of 24 historians, this volume explores the relations of Churches and empires, and Christian conceptions of empire, in the ancient, medieval, early modern and modern periods, as well as the role of empire in the global expansion of Christianity.