The Duration of Book Credit in Colonial New England

Account books show that merchants frequently used book credit in exchanges with consumers. The ability of credit to act as a substitute for currency in payments depends on the terms attached to the credit, such as its duration. To investigate duration more systematically, the author employs life table analysis and the singulate mean age at marriage, methods commonly used in demography, to analyze debt records from eighteenth-century Connecticut and Massachusetts. He arrives at expected duration estimates in excess of those in the literature. Given the expected duration, book credit seems to be a good substitute for other forms of payment. If this is so, a major revision of literature on colonial monetary matters may be in order.     

The persistence of white ethnicity in New England politics

There was a consensus among earlier students of New England politics that the political influence of European ancestry was fading by the latter half of the 20th century. We examine this proposition in recent times by exploring the role of ethnic ancestry in explaining the political divide in the region's presidential voting in over 1500 New England towns. Contrary to earlier predictions, ethnic origin does retain some explanatory power in models of recent voting behavior, and ethnic cleavages have not been entirely replaced by economic divisions in the electorate. Although the settlement patterns of the more established and numerous nationality groups (i.e. Irish and Italians) are less associated with partisanship than they were 50 years ago, the political salience of white ethnicity persists, suggesting that ethnic groups do not simply dealign or politically “assimilate” over time. Some groups maintain a strong identity in spite of upward mobility because movement from city to suburbs is selected not just on housing, income or school characteristics, as is usually the case, but on ethnicity too. Towns with significant concentrations of specific European ancestry groups lean Republican, even after we have accounted for the presence of other sources of political leaning and past voting tendencies, while Democratic attachments are undeniably strong in towns where the newer immigrant groups have settled. The “new ethnicity” (i.e. racial minorities) and the “old ethnicity” (i.e. white ethnics) clearly carry distinct political implications for this region's presidential politics.     

New Interpretations of Early Modern England

Reformation and Revolution 1558–1660. By Robert Ashton. (The Paladin History of England.) London: Granada. 1984. xx, 503 pp. £18.00.
Authority and Conflict: England 1603–1658. By Derek Hirst. (The New History of England, Volume 4.) London: Edward Arnold. 1986. viii, 390 pp. Hardback £27.50; paperback £9.95.
The Emergence of a Nation State: The Commonwealth of England 1529–1660. By Alan G.R. Smith. (Foundations of Modern Britain.) London: Longman. 1984. xiii, 479 pp. Paperback £8.50.     

After Structure Planning: The New Sub-regional Planning in England

The reformed planning system introduced in England in 2004 weakens the position of counties and unitary authorities. Regional bodies and central government have a larger say on the future shape of localities under these arrangements. In particular sub-regional strategies have a much bigger role within the new Regional Spatial Strategies. This paper examines the prospects for the influence of this new tier of planning, based on government guidance about sub-regional planning and on the evidence on emerging practice, particularly in the southern regions of England. The balance of influence of different actors is changing, both between government tiers and in wider governance relations. The prospects for integrated action in spatial terms are changing, as are the relationships to implementation.     

Cyprian and his collegae: Patronage and the episcopal synod of 252

The Roman patron–client relationship has been useful for understanding early Christian bishops and their relationships with their own communities. In this paper the question is asked whether that relationship could shed light on the relationships among bishops themselves. Taking the third–century Saint Cyprian of Carthage as the example, his interactions with other North African bishops at the synod of 252 are examined. The author accepts that Cyprian's Epp. 59 and 64 refer to that synod. Whatever else was discussed, we know that the bishops in synod resolved questions about the status of a former presbyter and the timing of infant baptism. In Ep. 59 Cyprian made reference to the college of bishops ( sacerdotum collegium ). The heart of the paper examines Cyprian's understanding of other bishops as collegae and whether he treated them as clients. The evidence that is available suggests that he accepted bishops who all shared in the same office as being responsible to God alone for their communities, but that his ability to exercise some degree of patron–age over them, through his greater prestige and financial base, was a control mechanism by which he sought to keep unity among the African Christian communities.     

The eccentricities of England

In this issue we begin a series of brief articles written by the editorial committee in charge of each number. These articles reflect on Europe, its constituent parts and its history in a very broad way, using a variety of methodologies. These reflections begin with the concept of a national Sonderweg, applied to the case of England.     

A Province Too Much Dependent on New England

The human geography of the Canadian Maritime provinces was transformed in the late eighteenth century; before 1775, the transformation proceeded largely under the sway of New England; after 1783 it was overwhelmingly the product of Loyalist settlement; by 1800 the region had 8 or 9 times the population of 1756, four colonial jurisdictions had been carved from the original Nova Scotia, and'its landscape, economy, and society revealed patterns that would persist into the twentieth century. This essay considers the evolving geography of the region during the first two, formative, decades of this period (1755–75). Focusing, in turn, on patterns of migration, the process of settlement, the structure of the regional economy, and the character of the landscape, it concludes that in the mid-1770s Nova Scotia was an economically marginal, commercially dependent, and politically vulnerable satellite of New England, heavily reliant on regular transfusions of British capital. A companion article - to appear in Volume 31 (no 4) of this journal — treats the last quarter of the century from a similar geographical perspective. A la fin du dix-huitième siècle la geographic humaine des provinces maritimes canadiennes fut I'objet de transformations, d'abord largement sous l'influence de la Nouvelle-Angleterre avant 1775; puis, aprés 1783, de facon prépondérante grâce à I'établissement des Loyalistes. Vers 1800, la population de la région s'était multipliée 8 ou 9 fois depuis 1756, I'ancienne Nouvelle-Ecosse avail été découpée en quatre terri-toires coloniaux et le paysage, I'économie et la société montraient les signes précurseurs de formes qui al-laient persister jusqu'au vingtième siècle. L'auteur de cet essai étudie cette évolution géographique de la region au cours des vingt premieres années (1755–75) de cette période qui iurent des années de formations.