so are bishops gone?

[Jak9090]

i remember reading something like, all bishops in the realm are gone and there's just one bishop now? if so that'd be pretty lame , it's great fun landing your useless sons to get rid of them, or having a scheming bishop plot to be regent or well, kill you.

why not just add them in and make them vassals of the one great bishop? c'mon paradox don't remove features.

 

[Atalvyr]

There is on "bishop" per landed character, who represents the totality of churches in that characters demesne. So if you have 1 church in your demesne, the owner of that church is your bishop. If you have multiple churches, your bishop "owns" all of them. Your vassals will have their own bishops, each representing any churches in that vassal's demesne.

So there are still plenty of bishops in the realm (one per landed character of count level or above) - you just only have to deal with a single bishop from your own demesne. This also means that if you have a large demesne with a lot of churches, your bishop might potentially be quite wealthy and powerful. Compare that to the largely powerless priests of CK2, who hold no power unless you actively grant them a county/duchy.

I would rather deal with one relevant bishop than 5 irrelevant priests. Half the time I run Papal Investiture because I can't be bothered to nominate successors for all my churches. If I want to get rid of useless sons, I have plenty of other options.

 

[Denkt]

Certain faiths (details on which, other than Catholicism, to follow in a later diary) replace the court chaplain with a bishop. If you still have a court chaplain, then they’ll behave much like other councillors, though some faiths may still have a harder time firing them.

Bishops use a mechanic called leasing (though they’re not the only ones to do so), whereby they control all levies and receive all taxes from every temple holding in your personal domain. Additionally, your bishop will receive a fraction of the taxes and levies generated by all of your vassals’ bishops. All told, that’s a lot of ducats the Church seems to be getting, isn’t it?

Of course, as loyal subjects of the crown, your bishop will be very happy to hand over taxes and troops to you, scaling with quite how happy they are. A loyal bishop is a huge boon for your economy and military, and can make the difference between unstoppable royal might and economic ruin.

A recalcitrant bishop, by contrast, is an utter pain. If they do not approve of you at least a little, they’ll hold back taxes and levies until you meet their standards again, and if they actively hate you, may even begin conspiring with others to replace you with a more pious monarch.

Of course, you’re probably asking what stops you from firing your bishop and replacing them with, say, a good friend of yours?

Around these parts, that’s what we call heresy. And you’ll have to wait till the religious dev diary for details on exactly what your options are for legally sacking your bishop. As for illegally, well, no Pope can stop a knife to the base of the spine...

 

[viola]

From the FAQ:

Are bishops exclusively councilors now, rather than landed holders of temples? In the sense that a count would have a single bishop for his temples, and duke for his, and the king for his?

• Yes and no. That is the system for your religious councillor, but ecclesiastic characters can absolutely hold land in their own right too. So you can have, say, an archbishop who is refusing the give you taxes, while the Prince-Bishop of York (who directly holds the Duchy of York and its vassals) is factioning against you. Or the Church may be your biggest supporter. Depends on you, really. Every ruler has their own bishops.

So, my understanding is that landed priests are still a thing, especially if they're powerful ones that hold counties and such, and that the deal with the "one bishop per ruler" is just streamlining the management of church taxes and not removing landed clerical characters. I'm not sure if there are still going to be minor clerical characters that rule individual baronies, but the same goes for city and castle barons I think.