This chapter studies the shaky effects of mobility and the resistance to it. The chapter looks at some cases in which Spanish officials and subjects moved way beyond the accepted boundaries and their mobility turned into trespassing, even going native. This radical movement, notably when physical mobility resulted in cultural mobility, generated many tensions and anxieties within each local society, and, in turn, prompted intense debate on the definition of the empire’s limits and nature. Many feared the excesses of mobility and argued for stringent policies and controls that would supposedly fixate Spanish identity and keep it pure.

Through the lens of the Variae, official letters written by Cassiodorus on behalf of the Ostrogothic ruler, Theoderic, and his successors, Chapter 4 examines the concerted attempts of a ‘barbarian’ regime which took the place of Roman emperors to preserve the traditions of Roman imperial rule and support the fabric and traditions of city life. Rather than either a sham or futile nostalgia, the letters are read as an exercise in bridge-building between Roman traditions and new political realities. The emphasis placed on cities is embodied in the ideal of civilitas, based on the rule of law, city life, and a mutual respect between Roman and Goth. While betraying both the strains of urban life and the decay of much urban fabric, Cassiodorus offers a vision of the ‘modern’ based on respect for and imitation of antiquity.

It is by comprehending domestic parliamentary politics in Britain itself that the origins of the commissions of enquiry into empire in 1819 can be best explained. This chapter tracks these beginnings through the power struggles that lay at the heart of Prime Minister Lord Liverpool’s fraught period in office (1812 – 1827). As we explore the parliamentary machinations that led to the calling of each commission, we come to a new understanding of the tension between politics and reform that has so long absorbed historians. These inquiries were always more than diversions to control Parliament, even if this was a key goal in their establishment. They also exemplified the very peculiar cast of the Liverpool regime, which had its own part-genuine and part-defensive commitments to imperial reform.

The perspective of the Greek historian Procopius, narrating the campaigns under Justinian in the East, North Africa, and Italy, proves to coincide with that of Cassiodorus. Procopius’ world is one of cities, with the exception of barbarian zones, which are city free. In Persia, Africa, and Italy was is fought over cities in a series of sieges. Adversaries are judged on their appreciation of critical elements of cities. The Persian Chosroes sacks Roman cities, but builds his own. The Vandals in Africa are sharply criticised for their demolition of city walls, which proves their military undoing. The Goths in Italy have a varied record: Theoderic is given credit for the sort of respect for Roman law, tradition, and city fabric which Cassiodorus documents, but his last successors, especially Totila, earn criticism, and ultimately defeat, for demolishing city walls.

In this chapter, we track the interplay between domestic British politics and empire through the 1823 and 1824 scandals surrounding the deportation of two free businessmen of colour, Louis Celeste Lecesne and John Escoffery, from Jamaica, and the grievances of Bishop Burnett who was deported from the Cape. These cases not only demonstrate the explosive potential of empire in 1820s parliamentary politics, they also bring to the fore a key function of inquiries ‘on the ground’, as the struggling Liverpool ministry tried (and largely failed) to use colonial commissions to keep Parliament (as much as possible) out of the serious business of governing and reforming empire.

Chapter 1 explores the use of gesture in preaching, with reference to the branch of rhetoric known as pronunciatio, which provided the theoretical basis for much of the discussion of gesture in the early modern period. The basic rules of pronunciatio were derived from classical sources, but were developed and adapted by sixteenth-century writers on sacred rhetoric. All these writers were united by a shared insistence on the need for decorum and moderation, but in the early seventeenth century a contrast began to emerge between the techniques favoured by Reformed theologians in the Ramist tradition, who stressed the importance of bodily restraint and self-control, and the more dramatic style of preaching pioneered by Jesuit rhetoricians in France. One of the unexpected findings of this chapter is that the Jesuit style was widely admired and copied by seventeenth-century English Protestant preachers as a way of giving their sermons more emotional impact. Against the common assumption of an anti-theatrical prejudice in early modern Protestantism, we should think of a dynamic relationship between the pulpit and the stage in which preachers and actors watched and learned from each other.

This chapter explores sacramental fees in respect of baptisms, weddings, funerals, and other life cycle events. One of the most significant aspects of clerical income, these fees were equally a substantial, but vital, financial outlay for the laity, which had meanings that were social, cultural, religious, and personal. This chapter argues that those on either side of the transaction could often value the money involved very differently, a finding that has an important bearing on our understanding of where the balance of power lay between Church and people. This chapter will also emphasise, through its varied examples, that sacramental fees were highly regionalised and could operate very differently depending on the parish or diocese involved.

Reaction, reform and compromise together constituted ‘constructive conservatism’ and the commissions of inquiry the Colonial Office sent out into empire from 1819 to 1825 were its perfect expression. Men on the ground, impartial enough to pass judgment, but knowledgeable enough about colonial affairs to cut through the noise of local and metropolitan politics, gathered firsthand knowledge of empire. To a ministry intent on holding tight to the reins of empire, this was essential because colonial scandals risked mobilizing Parliament to intervene. But commissions were also sent to gather real information to weave Britain’s newly disparate empire together. The very act of seeking independent intelligence demonstrated an effort to build imperial policy on information of a better calibre. Both political management and genuine reform were crucial to the origins, operation and consequences of the commissions, and together explain the entangled ideology and politics of the early nineteenth-century British world.

The introduction presents the main arguments and topics discussed throughout the book. It also sketches some critical characteristics of early modern Spanish officials and the global Spanish Empire. Furthermore, it discusses the book’s methodological and theoretical approaches, particularly the challenges of writing a global history from the margins.