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This book examines the changing nature of Catholicism in modern Scotland by placing a significant emphasis on women religious. It highlights the defining role they played in the transformation and modernisation of the Catholic Church as it struggled to cope with unprecedented levels of Irish migration. The institutions and care-networks that these women established represented a new age in social welfare that served to connect the church with Scotland's emerging civil society. The book examines how the church reacted to liberalism, legislative reform, the rise of evangelicalism and the continued growth of Irish migration between the late 1820s and the late 1850s. A mutual aversion to the Irish and a loyalty to nation and state inspired a recusant and ultramontane laity to invest heavily in a programme of church transformation and development. The recruitment of the Ursulines of Jesus, the first community of nuns to return to Scotland since the Reformation, is highlighted as a significant step towards legitimising Catholic respectability. The book focuses on the recruitment and influence of women religious. It also focuses on the issue of identity by considering how gender and ethnicity influenced the development of these religious communities and how this was connected with the broader campaign to transform Catholic culture in Scotland. The book also examines the development of Catholic education in Scotland between the late 1840s and 1900 and prioritises the role played by women religious in this process.
1 Scotland’s Catholic Church before emancipation For much of the period between the Reformation and the nineteenth century, Catholicism existed on the periphery of Scottish society, its survival fraught with uncertainty in an atmosphere of institutionalised anti-Catholicism and extreme poverty. The Scottish Mission, a term used to describe the Catholic Church in Scotland between 1603 and 1878, when it had no formal governing hierarchy, had been thrown into complete disarray by the Reformation. Those who remained Catholics went underground, keeping their
Introduction Scotland was, until the Anglo-Scottish truce of 1323, a persistent thorn in Edward’s side and a major examination of the effectiveness of his government and of his personal judgement. By any reasonable estimate Scotland was a test that Edward failed and failed repeatedly. In the process of deposition in 1327 one of the chief accusations levelled against him was
10 The Scottish Covenanters James Coleman A bloody sword! A bloody sword! Forged and furbish’d by the Lord! For thee, O Scotland! ’tis unsheathed – From thy martyr’d saints bequeathed!1 T his verse, taken from ‘Renwick’s Visit to the Death-Bed of Peden’, by the public lecturer and poet James Dodds (1817–74), is one of a multitude of nineteenth-century texts articulating the debt Scotland owed to the seventeenth- century Covenanters. With a peculiarly Victorian combination of fiery rhetoric and tearful sentimentality, the poem depicts the moment when the
2 Marriage within Scottish culture L ike in most of Europe, patriarchal social relations underpinned all forms of human interaction in Scotland through the seventeenth and into the late nineteenth century. A male head of household presiding over his subordinates, which included his wife, resident adult offspring, young children and servants, was the ideal form of household and the very basis of the social order. Symbolically, the conjugal relationship was the epitome of patriarchy, which all other social relationships, including that of king and subjects, should
During the eighteenth century, Scotland experienced a series of profound economic, social, cultural and political changes. Industry and agriculture were transformed, moving Scotland from a relative economic backwater (in European terms) to a country that witnessed innovations in agricultural and industrial production able to rival those anywhere on the globe. Fostered by
Supernatural beliefs have been vital to Scottish cultural development. In the early modern period, the Kirk played an all-important role in parish life, schooling the Scots on how to interpret the invisible world. Theologians and philosophers mused about the nature of God’s providence and the wiles of the Devil. Folk tradition peopled the landscape with fairies and nature spirits. The witch trials displayed the very real consequences of belief systems that would later be reframed as fantastical.
This book analyses the Scottish supernatural between about 1500 and 1800. Drawing together an international range of scholars with expertise in history, ethnology and literary studies, it explores the diverse ways in which Scots understood and experienced magical beings and extraordinary events. There are chapters on trance experiences, spirit-guides, angels, preaching on the supernatural, political prophecies, providence, astrology, Second Sight and the Enlightenment’s encounter with the paganism of classical antiquity. The book’s historical material is framed by two literary chapters: one on the ‘elrich’ supernatural in the poetry of the early sixteenth century, and one on the political supernatural in the poetry of the eighteenth century.
Overall, the book examines the cultural function of supernatural beliefs, and assesses how these beliefs evolved amid the upheaval of the Reformation, political and religious revolution, the emergence of the Enlightenment and the beginnings of romanticism.
This article examines Presbyterian interpretations in Scotland and Ireland of the Scottish Reformations of 1560 and 1638–43. It begins with a discussion of the work of two important Presbyterian historians of the early nineteenth century, the Scotsman, Thomas McCrie, and the Irishman, James Seaton Reid. In their various publications, both laid the template for the nineteenth-century Presbyterian understanding of the Scottish Reformations by emphasizing the historical links between the Scottish and Irish churches in the early-modern period and their common theology and commitment to civil and religious liberty against the ecclesiastical and political tyranny of the Stuarts. The article also examines the commemorations of the National Covenant in 1838, the Solemn League and Covenant in 1843, and the Scottish Reformation in 1860. By doing so, it uncovers important religious and ideological linkages across the North Channel, including Presbyterian evangelicalism, missionary activity, church–state relationships, religious reform and revival, and anti-Catholicism.
humankind. 3 Darren Oldridge similarly stresses the protective role of early modern angels, concluding that stories of angels must have been ‘deeply comforting’. 4 Certainly, songs and visual imagery underlined the idea of the angel as a protector, and stories circulated of angels defending human beings. However, angels were also punishers; they stood ready to avenge humanity’s sins at the Last Judgement. Moreover, angels served as God’s messengers. In early modern stories, this meant that they most commonly appeared to foretell death and destruction. In Scotland
This text provides the first full-length consideration of women’s economic roles in early modern Scottish towns. Drawing on tens of thousands of cases entered into burgh court litigation between 1560 and 1640 in Edinburgh, Dundee, Haddington, and Linlithgow, Women, credit, and debt explores how Scottish women navigated their courts and their communities. This includes a consideration of the lifecycle stage of these women, and whether those active in litigation were wives, widows, or singlewomen. The employments and by-employments that brought these women to court, and the roles these women had in the economy, are also considered. In particular, this book explores the roles of women as merchants and merchandisers, producers and sellers of ale, landladies, moneylenders, and servants. Comparing the Scottish experience to that of England and Europe, Spence shows that through the latter half of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth century women were conspicuously active in burgh court litigation and, by extension, were active and engaged participants in the early modern Scottish economy. This book reevaluates what we thought we knew about women in the early modern period. As such, it will be of particular interest to those studying and teaching Scottish social and economic history and valuable to anyone studying the history of work and gender. It will also appeal to all feminists who have an interest in how women negotiate economic roles.