Throughout the twentieth century Scottish literary studies was dominated by a critical consensus that critiqued contemporary anti-Catholic by advancing a re-reading of the Reformation. This consensus understood that Scotland's rich medieval culture had been replaced with an anti-aesthetic tyranny of life and letters. As a result, Scottish literature has consistently been defined in opposition to the Calvinism to which it frequently returns. Yet, as the essays in this collection show, such a consensus appears increasingly untenable in light both of recent research and a more detailed survey of Scottish literature. This collection launches a full-scale reconsideration of the series of relationships between literature and reformation in early modern Scotland. Previous scholarship in this area has tended to dismiss the literary value of the writing of the period - largely as a reaction to its regular theological interests. Instead the essays in this volume reinforce recent work that challenges the received scholarly consensus by taking these interests seriously. This volume argues for the importance of this religiously orientated writing, through the adoption of a series of interdisciplinary approaches. Arranged chronologically, the collection concentrates on major authors and texts while engaging with a number of contemporary critical issues and so highlighting, for example, writing by women in the period. It addresses the concerns of historians and theologians who have routinely accepted the established reading of this period of literary history in Scotland and offers a radically new interpretation of the complex relationships between literature and religious reform in early modern Scotland.

A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland deals with the making, shaping, and development of the Scottish Reformation. 28 authors offer new analyses of various features of a religious revolution and select personalities in evolving theological, cultural, and political contexts.

The Scottish Reformation of 1560 is one of the most controversial events in Scottish history, and a turning point in the history of Britain and Europe. Yet its origins remain mysterious, buried under competing Catholic and Protestant versions of the story. Drawing on fresh research and recent scholarship, this book provides the first full narrative of the question. Focusing on the period 1525-60, in particular the childhood of Mary, Queen of Scots, it argues that the Scottish Reformation was neither inevitable nor predictable. A range of different ‘Reformations’ were on offer in the sixteenth century, which could have taken Scotland and Britain in dramatically different directions. This is not a ‘religious’ or a ‘political’ narrative, but a synthesis of the two, paying particular attention to the international context of the Reformation, and focusing on the impact of violence - from state persecution, through terrorist activism, to open warfare. Going beyond the heroic certainties of John Knox, this book recaptures the lived experience of the early Reformation: a bewildering, dangerous and exhilarating period in which Scottish (and British) identity was remade.

The History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland is a book by John Knox. Knox was a Scottish minister, theologian, and writer who was a leader of the country's Reformation. He was the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

A pathetic and almost melancholy interest attaches to this volume of the Baird Lectures. Their scholarly and accomplished author may be said to have entered on the last stage of the malady to which he succumbed when they were read for him in Blythswood Parish Church, Glasgow, by his friend and former student, Professor Robertson, the closing one, indeed, having been delivered but a few days before his death. In proof of the deep interest which he took in the subject of these Lectures, and of his desire to present them in as perfect a form as possible, it may also be mentioned that he employed his time in revising them while confined to bed during the protracted and painful illness through which he passed. The editing of them he intrusted to another friend, Dr Hay Fleming of St Andrews, with whom he had much in common—similarity of tastes and interest in the same literary pursuits having led to an intercourse between them which ripened into mutual confidence and esteem. Had Professor Mitchell lived to see the work through the press himself, there is hardly room to doubt that, as in the case of most of his other publications, additional explanatory and supplementary notes on obscure points would have been appended by him. As it is, the editor in executing his task has done what he could in this respect. When the decease of the venerable Professor took place at St Andrews towards the end of March of this year, it was felt that the Church of Scotland had been bereft not only of one of her ablest and most trusted leaders, but of one of the wisest and warmest friends of her missions; and the many tributes paid to his memory, both from the pulpit and in the press, were all expressive of the high regard in which he was held, and of the sense of public loss caused by his removal. But the loss was not that of his own Church alone, nor of the University with which his name had been so long and so honourably associated. There are those in other communions who had learned to look upon him as "a master of Israel," and in all Presbyterian Churches especially he was recognised as one of the ablest and most learned exponents of the principles which they hold in common, and as one of the most earnest defenders of "the faith once delivered to the saints." As many of those who are familiar with Professor Mitchell's writings may know little or nothing of his personal history, it has been suggested that a short biographical sketch of him would form an appropriate introduction to this posthumous volume. The particulars woven together in the following narrative have been collected from various sources, some of them having been furnished by members of his own family.