The popular image of Scotland is dominated by widely recognized elements of Celtic culture. But a significant non-Celtic influence on Scotland's history has been largely ignored for centuries? This book argues that much of Scotland's history and culture from 1100 forward is Jewish. The authors provide evidence that many of the national heroes, villains, rulers, nobles, traders, merchants, bishops, guild members, burgesses, and ministers of Scotland were of Jewish descent, their ancestors originating in France and Spain. Much of the traditional historical account of Scotland, it is proposed, rests on fundamental interpretive errors, perpetuated in order to affirm Scotland's identity as a Celtic, Christian society. A more accurate and profound understanding of Scottish history has thus been buried. The authors' wide-ranging research includes examination of census records, archaeological artifacts, castle carvings, cemetery inscriptions, religious seals, coinage, burgess and guild member rolls, noble genealogies, family crests, portraiture, and geographic place names.

This book analyses the development of Catholic schooling in Scotland over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Scholarship of this period tends to be dominated by discussions of the 1872 and 1918 Education (Scotland) Acts: while these crucial acts are certainly not neglected in this volume, the editors and contributors also examine the key figures and events that shaped Catholic education and Catholic schools in Scotland. Focusing on such diverse themes as lay female teachers and non-formal learning, this volume illuminates many under-researched and neglected aspects of Catholic schooling in Scotland. This wide-ranging edited collection will illuminate fresh historical insights that do not focus exclusively on Catholic schooling, but are also relevant to the wider Scottish educational community. It will appeal to students and scholars of Catholic schooling, schooling in Scotland, as well as Christian schooling more generally.