The article examines the intellectual and ideological debate about the notions of duelling, courtesy, and honour in the Jacobean anti-duelling campaign. Particular attention is paid to the two most important contributions to this campaign – Francis Bacon's The charge touching duells (1614) and A pvblication of his matiesedict, and severe censvre against priuate combats and combatants (1614), written by Henry Howard, the earl of Northampton. By placing these two treatises into their intellectual context of courtesy and duelling manuals, the article seeks to demonstrate their sharply contrasting responses to the problem of duelling. Northampton accepted the notions of courtesy, honour, and insult underlying the duelling theory, but still wanted to abolish duelling. His solution was therefore a court of honour which would solve all the disputes of honour between noblemen and gentlemen. Bacon, on the other hand, argued that the only efficient way of getting rid of duelling was to question the entire intellectual framework on which duelling rested. To accept the notions of honour, courtesy, and insult inherent in the duelling theory and to set up a court of honour, he insisted, was tantamount to encouraging duelling itself. In The charge touching duells Bacon was thus arguing as much against Northampton's plans to suppress duelling as against the theory of duelling itself.

An argument has erupted in recent years over the authorship of A short tract on first principles, a manuscript treatise traditionally regarded as the first philosophical work of Hobbes. Some have denied that it was Hobbes 's work, while others have insisted that it is. Among rival candidates, the prime suspect is Robert Payne, chaplain to the Cavendish family of Welbeck Abbey. This article offers a fresh assessment of the evidence for authorship by examining the manuscript and its contents in the light of the Cavendish family manuscripts, and of the various roles played at Welbeck by Payne. It argues that the tract was written by Payne for his patrons as an attempt to apply the method of contemporary mechanics to problems of human psychology, and that it was based in part – though only in part – upon ideas about the nature of light and motion expounded by Hobbes at Welbeck during the early 1630s.

This article addresses a neglected facet of a familiar political debate, the contribution of Anglican royalist writers to the Engagement controversy. A new interpretation of the core issues at stake in the debate is offered by focusing on these Anglican responses. The work of Quentin Skinner, Margaret Judson, and John Wallace concentrated on the discussion of the duty of obedience to de facto powers. This article contends, however, that it was a debate over the nature of oaths and the lawfulness of taking apparently contradictory sworn promises which was at the heart of the controversy. Writers offered competing interpretations of the bond of oaths and covenants, the supporters of the Rump claiming that they were conditional and dependent for the obligation on circumstantial considerations, the Engagement's opponents claiming that these sworn bonds were non-reciprocal and indissoluble. In this debate both pro- and anti-Engagement authors used casuistic arguments to urge their readers either to take or to refuse the declaration of loyalty to the Commonwealth. Yet, whilst in print Anglicans had counselled against subscribing, in two manuscript cases of conscience they allowed correspondents to take the Engagement.

Diplomatic documents which record the relationship between France and the court of the bey of Tunis from the late seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century offer a unique source to understand the way in which cultures with very different assumptions meet and adapt to each other. The ceremonies of submission and reverence had to be adapted to meet European understandings of the state and nation while taking account of Muslim attitudes to infidels. The French Revolution introduced new criteria and new tensions which continued to vex relations into the nineteenth century. This double mirror of ‘Otherness’ raises interesting questions about the nature of culture and how cultures prove to be very flexible in practice. In spite of the dichotomization of the Others as strangers, there was agreement on common norms governing social situations where actors effectively interacted.

The article examines the use of seditious libel and blasphemy as instruments of control during the era of Tory hegemony. It argues that the law of libel was a formidable instrument of repression, but one which was all but abandoned by the legal authorities because it proved to be too unreliable. On the one hand, it placed the writers and vendors of radical literature under the constant threat of prosecution. They could be perpetually threatened by ex-officio informations; they paid all legal costs accruing from their cases; and, if put to trial, they often faced a hostile judge and a packed jury. On the other hand, a great deal of arguably seditious literature circulated freely because the Home Office lacked the institutional means to embark on a policy of wholesale prosecution; enforcement of the libel laws was scattershot at best; and defendants ultimately managed to undermine the government's prosecutorial strategy by exploiting the flexibility of language to win acquittal in some well-publicized cases. Thus the profound uncertainty of libel proceedings made them double-edged weapons which often damaged the government and the accused at the same time.

This article attempts to redefine the parameters of Napoleonic hegemony by applying two models to the territories of the Napoleonic empire: one developed by Nathan Wachtel, predicated on levels of acculturation and assimilation to the imperial core ; the second, derived from the work of Braudel and Brunet, which detects a European core, based along the Rhine–Rhone axis, a macro-region with a long, if submerged, history. This study concludes that the acceptance of Napoleonic reforms was achieved only in a core region, already predisposed to them.

This article argues that the growth of a free press in nineteenth-century Germany went hand in hand with the growth of an official, government-sponsored, press. The collapse of pre-publication censorship in 1848 prompted the development of increasingly sophisticated (and relatively successful) press control strategies by German governments, in the shape of official newspapers, semi-official newspapers, and indirect government press influence. Government press policy was essentially reactive. Changes in press policy were usually prompted by political events. Furthermore, government press coverage was forced to reflect shifts in public opinion in order to maximize readership of official propaganda. Government press policy focused not just on the dissemination of pro-government opinion, but also on the dissemination of pro-government information, probably the most effective form of government press influence. News management was subtle, and targeted small circulation local newspapers, rather than high profile opposition newspapers. Consequently, historians have tended to overlook the scale of government news management.

This article demonstrates the connections between journalism, patriotism, and the culture of public discussion in late Victorian Britain, taking as a case study C. P. Scott's use of the Guardian in opposing the Boer War. It asserts that while opposing the war, Scott was simultaneously trying to redefine ‘patriotism’ and preserve a rapidly waning ideal of the press as an agent of public discussion, two interrelated goals. In contrast to a predominant image of the patriot as blind supporter of the government's imperial expansionism, the Guardian put forth an ideal of a critical patriotism. At the same time, Scott rejected the prevailing contemporary notion that the press should merely ‘represent’ the readers' interests. Instead, he sought to use leading articles and news reports to encourage a culture of public discussion. Scott's journalistic and political goals overlapped, as his notion of patriotism required maintaining a healthy public sphere. Although this study demonstrates Scott's role in the persistence of critical ideals of patriotism and journalism, it concludes that Scott had to content himself with appealing to an elite audience.

This article reveals that the diplomatic and financial history of 1931 was even more turbulent than believed to date. New documents found at the Bank of England show that an intricate system of cross-deposits was set up by the Austrian Central Bank covertly to direct funds to the Creditanstalt via American and British banks – to compensate it for taking over the bankrupt Bodencreditanstalt – suggesting that the received accounts of the collapse of the Creditanstalt need to be revised. Further, documents have come to light which show that France exacerbated the 1931 run on the Austrian schilling in order to force Austria to abandon the Austro-German customs union project of that year. This article considers the relationship between the collapse of the Creditanstalt and the abandonment of the Austro-German customs union, incorporating the new evidence to provide a novel interpretation of the financial diplomacy of that year.

Much recent work has confirmed Norfolk's reputation as one of the earliest areas of England to adopt the practices of agrarian capitalism. As a response to the high levels of market orientation achieved there, relations between gentry and tenants, and latterly farmers and labourers, were coloured by a degree of hostility and violence rarely encountered elsewhere. In this article is printed an elaborate petition, which may confidently be dated to 1553, addressed to the queen and seeking legislation to restrain the economic activities of the Norfolk gentry. The petition shows a continuing tradition of agrarian agitation after the failure of Kett's revolt (1549); it offers an extended critique of the gentry's rapaciousness (which differs in emphasis from Kett's articles); outlines the difficulties the tenants faced at their hands, and reveals their capacity to organize and petition. A commentary places it in the larger context of mid-sixteenth-century agitations and attempts to identify the locality from which it arose.

This review reconsiders the place and importance of urban political culture in England between c. 1550 and c. 1750. Relating recent work on urban political culture to trends in political, social, and cultural historiography, it argues that England's towns and boroughs underwent two ‘renaissances’ over the course of the period: a ‘civic renaissance’ and the better-known ‘urban renaissance’. The former was fashioned in the sixteenth century; however, its legacy continued to inform political thought and practice over 150 years later. Similarly, although the latter is generally associated with ‘the long eighteenth century’, its attributes can be traced to at least the Elizabethan era. While central to broader transitions in post-Reformation political culture, these ‘renaissances’ were crucial in restructuring the social relations and social identity of townsmen and women. They also constituted an important but generally neglected dynamic of England's seventeenth-century ‘troubles’.

This review examines recent work on the ideology, culture, and socio-economic composition of early American militaries down to 1815. A fresh place has been given to the role of a Native American culture of war in influencing colonial warfare, although the exact nature of the synthesis of European and Indian traditions remains unclear. Social and economic investigations of the colonial militias and the Continental Army have revealed persistent patterns of expectations of contractual service and subsequent effective resistance when those conditions were not met. Taken together these works have brought us closer to a deeper understanding of the links between culture and military behaviour.

Singlewomen in the European past, 1250–1800. Edited by Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999. Pp. vi+352. ISBN 0-8122-1668-7.

Renaissance culture and the everyday. Edited by Patricia Fumerton and Simon Hunt. Philadelphia: Penn State Press, 1999. Pp. vi+366. ISBN 0-8122-1663-6.

The crimes of women in early modern Germany. By Ulinka Rublack. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. ix+292. ISBN 0-19-820637-2.

Colonial habits: convents and the spritual economy of Cuzco, Peru. By Kathryn Burns. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999. Pp. xi+307. ISBN 0-8223-2291-9.

Inka bodies and the body of Christ: Corpus Christi in colonial Cuzco, Peru. By Carolyn Dean. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv+264. ISBN 0-8223-2367-2.

The world of Túpac Amaru: conflict, community, and identity in colonial Peru. By Ward Stavig. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Pp. xxxiv+348. ISBN 0-8032-9255-4.

Smouldering ashes: Cuzco and the creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840. By Charles F. Walker. Durham and London, Duke University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii+330. ISBN 0-8223-2293-5.