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7 - ‘The time of reformation’: The Evolution of Early Modern Protestant Memories of the Scottish Reformation
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- By Bess Rhodes
- Edited by Steven J. Reid, University of Glasgow
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- Book:
- Rethinking the Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Print publication:
- 05 March 2024, pp 143-158
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- Chapter
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Summary
THE summer of 1579 saw the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland lamenting how little the Scottish Reformation had achieved. According to a petition despatched by the ministers of the Assembly to James VI, recent ‘cruel and unnatural murders’, the widespread ‘contempt of the poor’, a prevailing ‘corruption of justice’, and ‘many other evils which overflow this commonwealth’ all indicated ‘how slender and small success hitherto followed the reformation of religion within this realm’. Such a pessimistic outlook on the nature and legacy of the Scottish Reformation formed a notable departure from the attitudes of Protestant leaders 20 years earlier. The decade or so between the Reformation rising of the summer of 1559 and the murder of Regent Moray in January 1570 was characterised by a remarkable optimism in Protestant circles about the progress of religious reform in Scotland. In November 1559 the Genevan reformer John Calvin wrote to John Knox and his Scottish supporters congratulating them on ‘success incredible in so short a time’ and remarking on the ‘abundant matter for confidence in [the] future’. Protestant pronouncements became even more assured following the Reformation Parliament's rejection of papal authority and the Mass in August 1560. Indeed, by May 1564 it was possible for the elders of the St Andrews Kirk Session to boast that ‘the face of a perfect reformed kirk has been seen within this city [for] the space of five years’.
During the final decades of the sixteenth century a significant change emerged in how Protestants depicted the Scottish Reformation. Texts written in the immediate aftermath of the events of 1559 and 1560 typically present Scotland's shift from Catholicism to Protestantism as a successful moment of conversion – an extraordinary achievement which took place within a short space of time. In contrast, Protestants writing in the 1570s, 1580s, and 1590s tended to be more negative, often portraying reform as a protracted and problematic process. This pattern can be seen across a range of genres including memoirs, sermons, and administrative records. The exact nature of the criticisms varied depending on the agenda of the author.
11 - Augmenting Rentals: The Expansion of Church Property in St Andrews, c. 1400–1560
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- By Bess Rhodes, Postdoctoral researcher and tutor at the University of St Andrews.
- Edited by Katie Stevenson, Michael Brown
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- Book:
- Medieval St Andrews
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 28 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 17 February 2017, pp 223-236
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Summary
THE fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries saw a flowering in Scottish urban piety, with recent research highlighting the vitality of Catholic religious observance in late medieval Scottish towns and cities. During this period numerous new ecclesiastical foundations were established in burghs across the kingdom, whilst many existing churches were extended and developed. The expansion in religious provision was accompanied (and partly enabled) by a growth in the amount of church property within Scottish towns. Throughout the late Middle Ages large plots of urban land were converted to religious purposes, and extensive portfolios of secular properties, such as houses and crofts, were acquired by ecclesiastical institutions. This increase in urban church landholding was particularly apparent in St Andrews, where it transformed both the appearance and the economy of the city.
Religious institutions and officials had played a part in St Andrews landholding at least since the burgh's formal foundation in the twelfth century. Nevertheless, the late Middle Ages saw an increase both in the number of religious sites within the city and in the degree of financial burden ecclesiastical institutions placed on ordinary households. The layout of the urban settlement and the nature of the relationship between clergy and laity in St Andrews were redefined by the late mediaeval ecclesiastical expansion. This chapter aims to explore the extent of the fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century growth in church property within St Andrews and its implications for the local community.
At the start of the fifteenth century the main religious foundations in St Andrews were the cathedral, the collegiate church of St Mary on the Rock, the parish church of Holy Trinity, and the hospitals of St Leonard and St Nicholas. With the exception of the old leper hospital of St Nicholas (which stood a little distance from the burgh) all of these foundations were located in a distinct ecclesiastical zone at the eastern end of the city. To the west of the religious area lay the secular settlement of St Andrews, with its three main streets of South Gait, Market Gait and North Gait. The extent of the pre-fifteenth-century development along these thoroughfares is uncertain. By 1400 South Gait was divided up into burgage plots at least as far west as Logies Lane, and probably beyond.