Among the artefacts recovered from Warwick, an English ship wrecked in Bermuda at the end of November 1619, was a small wooden navigational device. Discovered during the 2010 archaeological field season, the object was cleaned, analysed, and later conserved. It has been identified as an analogue navigational tool known as a plain scale. A novel instrument at the time, the device showed real-world applications of complex mathematical formulas for charting a course on a map. Its presence on Warwick is striking; it is believed to be the earliest known example of a plain scale in use on board an English ship sailing to the colonies. The goal of this paper is to present the artefact, provide its historical and archaeological background, and discuss the current body of research related to its purpose in resolving navigational problems.

The early modern Philippine archipelago is often described as being under the power of a frailocracy with a far-reaching impact. From a microhistorical approach of ecclesiastical contentiousness, I argue that the intermittent clashes between and inside the two pillars of colonial rule—the civil and ecclesiastical powers—belie the church's overarching control over state affairs. The church was not a monolithic unit in the Philippines, but was rather highly fragmented, especially in distant Asian enclaves, and it was not independent, but relied on royal patronage, diplomacy, and transnational networks. Using archival materials, official reports, religious manifestos, and royal appointments and decrees, I focus upon two significant case studies of the two exiled archbishops of Manila, Fray Hernando Guerrero, OSA, and Felipe Pardo, OP, to explore factionalism, negotiation, and microlevel political constellations as a way to approach conflicting church–state relations in seventeenth-century Philippines from a more nuanced perspective.

This article examines the marketing and distribution of foreign fabric, predominantly English, in the northern sub-plateau of Spain at the beginning of the 18th century using information from a fiscal source. The official tax record used in this study was a specific and special tax levied on cloth imported from countries with which Spain was at war. The details of this tax shed more light on a hotly debated topic with respect to transport and networks in modern Spain and make it possible to analyze and quantify the physical volume as well as the value and the destination of textiles.