The Uses of Reform is a study of the Reformation as a movement for behavioral reform, concentrating on Scotland during the first fifty years (1560-1610) of its Reformation as a primary example. The opening chapters trace the development of "Godly Discipline" as part of the European-wide reform movement. Graham follows this general narrative with a study of the creation and implementation of a disciplinary system in Scotland. Finally, he compares disciplinary practices in the Scottish Church with those of the Huguenot communities of France. Looking closely at the proceedings of church courts which enforced regulations concerning behavior, Graham paints a picture of the Reformation as a social process. This book, the first of its kind in the historiography of the Scottish Reformation, explores how Reformed protestantism affected local communities and redefined relationships.

Vols. 29-47, 1913-1931 and v. 72-79, 1956-1963 include Scottish Land Court reports, v. 1-19 and v. 44-51.

Edinburgh's reformation was one of the last of the great city reformations of the sixteenth century. It took on a highly distinctive shape due to the burgh's social and economic problems and its position as a cockpit for English policy in Scotland and the shifting factionalism of Scottish politics. In studies of the Scottish Reformation, too little attention has been paid to the nature of Scottish society itself. In a society so conscious of rank, tradition and precedent, the Reformation was only likely to make progress where it did not disturb the existing order, and in Edinburgh the new religion was obliged to work within the natural constraints of burgh life. This book shows that the early promise of the Protestant reformers of a new society provoked a backlash and had to be abandoned for a new conciliatory approach. The result was that power remained in much the same hands in the 1580s as it had in the 1540s, with one real difference – there was more of it.