After 1600, English emigration became one of Europe's most significant population movements. Yet compared to what has been written about the migration of Scots and Irish, relatively little energy has been expended on the numerically more significant English flows. Whilst the Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Jewish and Black Diasporas are well known and much studied, there is virtual silence on the English. Why, then, is there no English Diaspora? Why has little been said about the English other than to map their main emigration flows? Did the English simply disappear into the host population? Or were they so fundamental, and foundational, to the Anglophone, Protestant cultures of the evolving British World that they could not be distinguished in the way Catholic Irish or continental Europeans were? With contributions from the UK, Europe North America and Australasia that examine themes as wide-ranging as Yorkshire societies in New Zealand and St George's societies in Montreal, to Anglo-Saxonism in the Atlantic World and the English Diaspora of the sixteenth century, this international collection explores these and related key issues about the nature and character of English identity during the creation of the cultures of the wider British World. It does not do so uncritically. Several of the authors deal with and accept the invisibility of the English, while others take the opposite view. The result is a lively collection which combines reaffirmations of some existing ideas with fresh empirical research, and groundbreaking new conceptualisations.

Saints and Their Cults in the Atlantic World traces the changing significance of a dozen saints and holy sites from the fourth century to the twentieth and from Africa, Sicily, Wales, and Iceland to Canada, Boston, Mexico, Brazil, and the Caribbean. Scholars representing the fields of history, art history, religious studies, and communications contribute their perspectives in this interdisciplinary collection, also notable as the first English language study of many of the saints treated in the volume. Several chapters chart the changing images and meanings of holy people as their veneration traveled from the Old World to the New; others describe sites and devotions that developed in the Americas. The ways that a group feels connected to the holy figure by ethnicity or regionalism proves to be a critical factor in a saint's reception, and many contributors discuss the tensions that develop between ecclesiastical authorities and communities of devotees. Exploring the fluid boundaries between pilgrimage and tourism, ritual and knowledge, articles assess the importance of place in saint veneration and shed new light on the relationship between a saint's popularity and his or her association with holy relics, healing waters, and keepsakes purchased at a pilgrimage site. In addition to St. Benedict the Moor, medieval Irish pilgrimage art, and Ponce de Leon's ""Fountain of Youth"", the authors discuss figures such as the Holy Child of Atocha, St. Winefride of Wales, Father Patrick Power, St. Amico of Italy and Louisiana, Our Lady of Prompt Succor, and the Icelandic bishop Gumundr Arason.

This book presents an international comparative study of a mode of emancipation that worked to reinforce the institution of slavery. Manumission - the act of freeing a slave while the institution of slavery continues - has received relatively little scholarly attention as compared to other aspects of slavery and emancipation. To address this gap, editors Rosemary Brana-Shute and Randy J. Sparks present a volume of essays that comprise the first-ever comparative study of manumission as it affected slave systems on both sides of the Atlantic. In this landmark volume, an international group of scholars consider the history and implications of manumission from the medieval period to the late nineteenth century as the phenomenon manifested itself in the Old World and the New. The contributors demonstrate that although the means of manumission varied greatly across the Atlantic world, in every instance the act served to reinforce the sovereign power structures inherent in the institution of slavery. In some societies only a master had the authority to manumit slaves, while in others the state might grant freedom or it might be purchased. Regardless of the source of manumission, the result was viewed by its society as a benevolent act intended to bind the freed slave to his or her former master through gratitude if no longer through direct ownership. The possibility of manumission worked to inspire faithful servitude among slaves while simultaneously solidifying the legitimacy of their ownership. The essayists compare the legacy of manumission in medieval Europe; the Jewish communities of Levant, Europe, and the New World; the Dutch, French, and British colonies; and the antebellum United States, while exploring wider patterns that extended beyond a single location or era. They also document the fates of manumitted slaves, some of whom were accepted into freed segments of their societies; while others were expected to vacate their former communities entirely. The contributors investigate the cultural consequences of manumission as well as the changing economic conditions that limited the practice by the eighteenth century to understand better the social implications of this multifaceted aspect of the system of slavery.