Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Celtic church – scotland – history'

In and around the 870s, Britain was transformed dramatically by the campaigns and settlements of the Great Army and its allies. Some pre-existing political communities suffered less than others, and in hindsight the process helped Scotland and England achieve their later positions. By the twelfth century, the rulers of these countries had partitioned the former kingdom of Northumbria. This thesis is about what happened in the intervening period, the fate of Northumbria's political structures, and how the settlement that defined Britain for the remainder of the Middle Ages came about. Modern reconstructions of the era have tended to be limited in scope and based on unreliable post-1100 sources. The aim is to use contemporary material to overcome such limitations, and reach positive conclusions that will make more sense of the evidence and make the region easier to understand for a wider audience, particularly in regard to its shadowy polities and ecclesiastical structures. After an overview of the most important evidence, two chapters will review Northumbria's alleged dissolution, testing existing historiographic beliefs (based largely on Anglo-Norman-era evidence) about the fate of the monarchy, political community, and episcopate. The impact and nature of ‘Southenglish' hegemony on the region's political communities will be the focus of the fourth chapter, while the fifth will look at evidence for the expansion of Scottish political power. The sixth chapter will try to draw positive conclusions about the episcopate, leaving the final chapter to look in more detail at the institutions that produced the final settlement.

This research was stimulated by a concern for the losses in membership being experienced by the Church of Scotland and by the fact that only one research study had been carried out and that had concentrated upon the Church's recruitment of young persons. This was seen as too narrow an approach. The research concentrated on the urban city of Dundee and constructed a computer database of 20,297 membership records [1982] and 3,997 Questionnaire Survey records of actual attenders in the 32 participating congregations. From the straight-forward examination of the demographic and social indicators, eg. age, sex, class, etc., a model of attending frequency is built revealing that the Church's concern might be wisely directed towards better administrative and pastoral care of the existing members as its primary objective. A further research aim was to develop spatial and 'modeling' techniques in order that the existing patterns of allegiance and attendance might be analysed. By examining the differentiation between various sub-sets of members and attenders, the evidence demonstrated that the Scottish council housing policy with its attendant displacement of population in Dundee (outlined in chapter two), had exacerbated the phenomenon of 'membership-at-a-distance'. Distance, in itself produced lower rates of observance, and it is argued, in turn leads to a greater risk of lapsing. The total effect of distant membership also produces congregations no longer existing as coterminous with geographic parish areas. The Church has continued to unite and merge these spatially distributed congregations thus severing residual allegiance ties and adding to the losses experienced from other causes. The main conclusion of this research is that the Church has mistakenly attempted to respond to the situation with an institutional 'reaction', whereas the real need for the present is to acknowledge the primacy of the existence of these congregations and to restructure its ministry and resources to support the continuing existence of the congregations. It is argued that a pastoral response is what has been lacking, and in the absence of reliable, large scale studies, planning has proceeded on the false basis that the 'parish' concept was a suitable criteria in every circumstance. In the concluding chapter, several practical recommendations are made in respect of the churches own procedures, these being derived from close acquaintance with the evidence of the data.

This thesis deals with the theology and development of the Evangelical Episcopalian movement in nineteenth-century Scotland. Such a study facilitates the construction of a detailed doctrinal and social profile of these Churchmen, hitherto unavailable. In the introduction an extensive investigation is provided, identifying individuals within the group and assessing their numerical strength. Chapter 2 shows the locations of Evangelical Episcopalian churches and suggests reasons for their geographical distribution. Chapter 3 investigates some sermons and writings of various clergy and laypersons, highlighting the doctrinal beliefs of Scottish Evangelical Episcopalians and placing them within the spectrum of Evangelical Anglicanism and showing affinities with Scottish Presbyterianism. Chapter 4 concerns the lifestyle of members of the group, covering areas such as marriage, family, leisure and philanthropy. Chapter 5 provides a numerical analysis of the social make-up of various congregations paying particular attention to the success achieved in reaching the working classes. Chapters 6 and 7 examine the issues faced by Scottish Evangelical Episcopalians in an age of increasing Tractarian and Roman Catholic activity. Topics covered include the theology of baptism and the communion service. The contrast between Evangelical belief and that of orthodox Scottish High Churchmen and Virtualists is clarified. Chapter 8 explains the factors contributing to the secession of D. T. K. Drummond from the Scottish Episcopal Church and the formation of the English Episcopal movement. Further disruptions are discussed in Chapter 9. Chapter 10 provides a detailed analysis of the development and eventual fragmentation of English Episcopalianism. Chapter 11 concludes the thesis with an evaluation of the contribution of English Episcopalianism to the history of the Scottish Episcopal Church and the reasons for its emergence. The thesis thus provides a detailed examination of the motives which drove the adherents of this important facet of nineteenth-century British Evangelicalism.

This thesis examines Evangelicalism as a broadly-based intellectual and social movement which sought to shape the overall thought and life of the Church of Scotland during the first half of the nineteenth century. A set of distinctive organisations --religious periodicals, voluntary societies, education, and corporate prayer-- provided its institutional structure. They represented the practical response to a general concern for revitalising the Church, for evangelism, and for social morality. 'Evangelicals' are defined as those who combined participation in these institutions with a fundamental commitment to the Church of Scotland as an established, national church. The development of each of these institutions is explored as a means of tracing the growth of the movement as a whole. Religious periodicals helped to unite scattered individuals within the Established Church who shared a desire to spread experiential Christianity. By providing a forum for discussing issues related to this concern, these publications communicated Evangelical ideas throughout the Kirk, giving Evangelicals far greater influence than their relative lack of power in the ecclesiastical courts around the turn of the century suggested they would have. Religious voluntary societies enabled Evangelicals to translate their ideas into action on a wide range of issues. The seeming effectiveness of groups such as missionary and Bible societies made Evangelicalism increasingly attractive, and led to the incorporation of their activist approach into existing Kirk structures after the mid-1820s. However, Evangelicals struggled with the tensions between the gathered and territorial views of the Church inherent in their commitments both to societies and to the Establishment. Because Evangelicals, following the Scottish Reformers, believed that education encouraged biblically-based Christianity, they were actively involved in all levels of education, from Sabbath schools to the universities, helping to spread Evangelical ideas and practice among young people. Evangelicals' emphasis upon corporate prayer not only reflected their belief that they needed divine aid to achieve their aims, but built up social bonds at a local level and reinforced commitment to the other Evangelical institutions.

This thesis examines the impact of the Reformation on the estates of ecclesiastical institutions and officials based in St Andrews. It argues that land and wealth were redistributed and power structures torn apart, as St Andrews changed from Scotland's Catholic ecclesiastical capital to a conspicuously Protestant burgh. The rapid dispersal of the pre-Reformation church's considerable ecclesiastical lands and revenues had long-term ramifications for the lives of local householders, for relations between religious and secular authorities, and for St Andrews' viability as an urban community. Yet this major redistribution of wealth has had limited attention from scholars. The first part of this study considers the role played by the Catholic Church in St Andrews before the Reformation, and the means by which it was financed, examining the funding of the city's pre-Reformation ecclesiastical foundations and officials, and arguing that (contrary to some traditional assumptions) the Catholic Church in St Andrews was on a reasonably sound financial footing until the Reformation. The second section considers the immediate disruption to St Andrews' religious lands and revenues caused by the burgh's public conversion to Protestantism, and then explores the more planned reorganisation of the 1560s. The disputes and difficulties triggered by the redistribution of ecclesiastical wealth are examined, as well as the longer term impact on St Andrews of the treatment of church revenues at the Reformation. Evidence for this study is chiefly drawn from the extensive body of manuscripts concerning St Andrews held by the National Library of Scotland, the National Records of Scotland, and the University of St Andrews Special Collections.

This main aim of this thesis is to conclusively demonstrate that John Spottiswoode was one of the most important churchman in early modern Scotland. He was, it will be shown, the most authoritative and impressive of Scotland's post-Refonriation bishops. Spottiswoode was the principal ecclesiastic in James VI's reconstruction of an episcopal church in Scotland after 1603 when he was appointed Archbisiop of Glasgow. This was followed by his prestigious translation to the metropolitan see of St Andrews in 1615 from where he presided over those controversial liturgical reforms of the succeeding years of the Jacobean era. Moreover, as a prominent member of the Scottish government he was heavily involved in secular politics and administration throughout the absentee kingship of James VI and that of his son, Charles I. This study, however, will confine itself to charting the archbishop's ecclesiastical and political ascendancy and involvement within the Scottish Jacobean church and state. Although Spottiswoode was without question a loyal supporter of the crown, it will be shown that he was no sycophant. Therefore, it is necessary to provide an analysis of the qualities and characteristics that made Spottiswoode such an influential figure and beneficiary of royal largesse between 1603 and 1625. Through focusing on the activities and objectives of Archbishop Spottiswoode throughout the reign of James VI, this thesis also aims to challenge the popular notion that the Church of Scotland functioned efficiently and harmoniously throughout the reign of"rex pacificus". Furthermore, the idea that an absolutist state existed in Scotland after the regal union will be exposed as fanciful.

This thesis is concerned with the changing face of educational provision in nineteenth-century Scotland. In particular, it examines the reasons behind the Church of Scotland�s loss of official authority over schooling in 1872. From the time of the Reformation, the Church had been empowered to supervise all education in Scotland, to play the major role in the appointment of teachers, and to ensure that landowners assumed their responsibilities in the placing of a school in every parish. However, this authority had never operated straightforwardly, and in 1803 an Education Act transferred significant aspects of the Church�s power over the appointment of teachers in parochial schools - and therefore over the curriculum of those schools - to local landowners. In the course of the nineteenth century, the Church�s position was eroded still more substantially, until the Education Act of 1872 formally gave control over State sponsored establishments to locally-elected School Boards. The Church�s loss of power was directly connected with the formation of a system of universal, compulsory schooling for Scotland�s children. The study is structured in seven chapters. Chapter 1 considers the background to the educational developments of the nineteenth century: the profound social and ecclesiastical consequences of demographic change, industrialisation, and urbanisation. Section A (Chapters 2-4) explores the history of the Church of Scotland�s work in education, and the emergence of other churches which actively developed additional and rival schools in the 1800s. Chapter 2 examines the origins and working of the Church of Scotland�s system of parochial schools, and the responses of this system to a changing educational environment. Chapters 3-4 assess the place of the Church of Scotland�s ancillary institutions, Sessional and Assembly schools, and the activities of the Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK). Detailed consideration is given to the educational efforts of four other major denominations - the Free Church of Scotland, the United Presbyterian Church, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Church - and to the schools established by the Society of Friends. The demonstrable inability of the Church of Scotland to meet its statutory obligations in both rural and urban areas, and the sheer scale of the educational provision made by other bodies, fostered a growing perception that responsibility for schooling could not be entrusted to any single voluntary institution, but required to be vested in the State. Section B (Chapters 5-7) examines the evolving ideals of rescue and reformation of the �perishing classes� in the work of Sunday, ragged, industrial, and reformatory schools, and the parts played by such schools in educating the poorest members of British society in the nineteenth century. As these parts can all be seen to be interconnected, it emerges that the Church of Scotland�s withdrawal from Sunday-school provision in 1799 compromised its capacity to meet the needs of a growing constituency of vulnerable children, and exacerbated its inability to provide appropriate instruction for those most affected by the turmoil of industrialisation. The lay composition of the committees that managed all of these schools also contributed to the marginalisation of the institutional voice of the Church in administering Scotland�s education. In the end, the Church of Scotland lost control to the State in 1872 because it was unable to adapt its parochial structure sufficiently to provide appropriate schooling to meet the challenges of a changed world.

While Scotland was politically unified before the First Scottish War of Independence (1296-1328), it was only nominally so. Scotland shared a rich cultural unity amongst the clans, and it was only through the invasion from England, and the war that followed, that Scotland found a true political unity under King Robert the Bruce. This thesis argues that Scotland had a shared cultural identity, including the way it waged war, and how it came to be united under one king who brought a sense of nationalism to Scotland.

This study is an examination of the differing and competing representations of the Scottish Covenanters that emerged from the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 to the publication in 1835 of The Tales of the Wars ofMontrose, by James Hogg. The disserttion researches representations of the Scottish Covenanters in thee centuies offictional and non-fictional texts, for example, seventeenth-centu sermons, eighteenth-centu chapbooks, and nineteenth-centu Scottish literatue, and it notes and examines the discordance in the various modes of literar discourse. The disserttion is aranged chronologically as the most logical method of tracing and demonstrating the discordance. An historical context is provided to each chapter and also within each chapter as necessar to explain and to situate the discourses under scrutiny within their contemporar climate. Chapter One examines representations of the Scottish Covenanters from the first signing of the National Covenant in 1638 to their disappearance from Scottish mainstream thing with the 'Glorious Revolution' in 1688-9. The chapter begins by examining the document known as the National Covenant and reveals how radically different it was from previous Scottish bonds of allance. The early Covenanters or 'Politick Chrstians' who attempted to promote and to live up to the spirtual and secular aims of the National Covenant were concerned to present a tre image of what it was to be a Covenanter. The Royalists and anti-Covenanters counteracted by detracting the movement though irony which revealed the inconsistencies of Covenanting priciples. The paper war of words included contemporar news sheets, privately circulated letters, broadsides and ballads. After 1660, when Episcopacy was reintroduced into Scotland literar representations of the Scottish Covenanters were, on the whole, denigratory as the Scottish Privy Council, with the full support of the English governent sought to prevent a repeat of the events of 1638. The satirical work of George Hickes is revealed as a crucial factor in the demise of the popularty of Covenanting. As the Covenanting movement became defensive rather than offensive the Covenanters counteracted with books and pamphlets such as Naphtali, that included declarations and 'last testimonies' of those convicted for treason after the Pentland Uprising in 1666. This chapter closely examines one of the published Covenanting sermons and reveals that it is inauthentic propagandist literatue. The representation of Scottish Covenanters in the crucial post-Bothwell/opish plotÆxclusion Crisis altered significantly. A comparison of the draft manifesto published by Royal Warant under the title, 'The Fanaticks New-Covenant', with a later document published by the 'United Societies' reveals that there were moderate Presbyterians after Bothwell Bridge who proposed upholding the Covenants. Their 'manifesto' was published alongside of the more violently rhetorical 'Sanquhair Declaration', which led to them being wrongly associated with the Cameronians. The final representation to be examined in this period is of the Cameronian historian, Alexander Shields. He portayed the Covenanters of the 1680s in apocalyptic tropes as a 'suffering remnant' in exile within their own countr. Chapter Two examines the discordant discourses of the eighteenth centu. The 'Revolution Settlement' of 1688-9 re-instated Presbytery and as the tables were tued, so the Episcopalian satirsts denigrated the Presbyterians by implying that all Covenanters were of a similar violent propensity as the Cameronians had theatened. The move towards Enlightenment away from the enthusiastic raptue of the seventeenth centu can be traced though these satircal representations which concentrated an accusation that Presbyterian preaching was ineffective and ridiculous. As Covenanting fell out of favour historians such as Robert Wodrow, and also the 'United Societies' as the Cameronians became known tued to apologia. Their accounts portayed the Covenanting movement of the later seventeenth-centu as entirely defensive. This was disputed by satirsts such as Pitcaire and Swift, and Enlightened historians such as David Hume. Towards the end of the eighteenth centu Reformed Presbyterians, as the Cameronians were now called, published major works which promoted positive images of the Covenanters. John Howie's Biographia Scoticana significantly altered the perspective of Covenanting. He depicted Covenanting as the natul successor of the Reformation in his hagiogrphical collection which begins with the mardom of Walter Mil in 1550. Overall, this chapter examines the way that representations of the Scottish Covenanters altered in the changing political, religious and intellectual climate of the eighteenth centu. Chapter Thee examines the literar representation of the Scottish Covenanters in the early nineteenth centu to 1807. Using Gerard Genett's Paratexts as a model the chapter examines the interplay between the text and the anotation in John Leyden's poetr and in his editing of John Wilson's poem entitled, Clyde, in the anotation and introductory material that Scott appended to five Covenanting ballads in the third volume of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, in the anotation to James Grahame's long reflective poem entitled, The Sabbath, and finally, to the imitation ballad entitled, 'Mess John' in James Hogg's collection of 'traditional' material entitled, The Mountain Bard. The chapter situates the subjective editing practices of Scott into the contemporar political climate of a heightened revolutionar atmosphere engendered by the threat of war between the United Kingdom, and France and Spain. This chapter offers a revision of the poet, James Grahame. A close reading of The Sabbath, that is taen in context with his earlier suppressed anti-clerical and anti-Enlightenment poetry reveals that it is an anti-Establishmentaan, as opposed to purely reflective poem. Finally, in this chapter the notion of James Hogg as Scott imitator is rejected. A close reading of his ballad, 'Mess John' indicates his move from imitator to independent author. Overall, this chapter reveals that Scott revised representations of the Scottish Covenanters though an appropriation of eighteenth-centu pseudo-Covenanting and anti-Covenanting works. Chapter Four is a study ofScott's series of novels entitled, Tales of My Landlord that he published between 1816 and 1819. The chapter begins with a close examination ofScott's satirical representation of Reformed Presbyterians and dissenters in his first novel entitled, Waverley. After establishing Scott's anti-Covenanting tropes the chapter then proceeds to an examination of the novels from the series which constituted his most intensively derogatory treatment of Covenanters and their descendats. Takg Par's study of Don Quixote as an exemplar the chapter discovers the extent of Scott' s anti-Covenanting satire. As in the previous two chapters the contemporar political and religious climate is also discussed. Chapter Five examines the literar response to Scott's anti-Covenanting satire, and to the subjective editing practices of Charles Kirkpatrck Share. It suggests that the battle over the documenta evidence of Covenanting material signified the battle for authorial control that became the central concerns ofHogg and GaIt. The prose fictions of James Hogg, John Galt, Allan Cuningham and John Wilson are compared and contrasted. This reveals that Hogg had developed an entirely new paradigm of positively representing the Covenanters by acknowledging their heroism and fortitude while rejecting their violence and wild rhetoric. John GaIt's anti-romantic novel Ringan vu Gilhaize offered an inovative interpretation of historical reconstrction that appears to have been deliberately aimed at counterig Scott.

This thesis examines the built environment and culture of Scotland between 1560 and 1645 by analysing church buildings erected during the period. The mid-sixteenth century ecclesiastical Reformation and mid-seventeenth-century political and ecclesiastical tumult in Scotland provide brackets that frame the development of this physical aspect of Scottish cultural history. This thesis draws most heavily on architectural and ecclesiastical history, and creates a compound of the two methods. That new compound brings to the forefront of the analysis the people who produced the buildings and for whom the church institution operated. The evidence used reflects this dual approach: examinations of buildings themselves, where they survive, of documentary evidence, and of contemporary and modern maps support the narrative analysis. The thesis is divided into two sections: Context and Process. The Context section cements the place of the cultural contributions made by ecclesiastical buildings to Scottish history by analysing the ecclesiastical historical, theological, and political contexts of buildings. The historical analysis helps explain why, for example, certain places managed to build churches successfully while others took much longer. The creative tension between these on-the-ground institutions and theoretical ideas contributed to Scotland’s ability to produce cultural spaces. The Process section analyses the narratives of individual buildings in several different steps: Preparing, Building, Occupying, and Relating. These steps connected people with the physical entity of a church building. The Preparing chapter shows how many reasons in Scotland there were to initiate a building project. The Building chapter uses financial, design, and work narratives to tease out the intricacies of individual church stories. Occupying and Relating delve into later histories of individual congregations to understand how churches sat within the world about them. Early modern Scottish church building was immensely varied: the position, style, impact, purpose, and success of church buildings were different across the realm. The manner people building and using churches reacted to their environments played no small role in forming habits for future action. Church buildings thus played a role establishing who early modern Scottish people were, what their institutions did, and how their spirituality was lived daily.

This thesis examines the Scottish Presbyterian Churches anti-Irish campaign in the inter-war period with particular emphasis on the governmental response. It can, and has been, argued that the Church campaign was driven more by sectarian sentiment than by any other motive, however, the Church made a determined attempt to make their case on racial grounds. Discredited as those theories now are this thesis will carefully examine intellectual basis of the Church’s case. It has not thus far been considered how much the Church’s arguments were influenced by academic opinion in the United States and by the American experience of immigration restriction. It has also been argued that politically the campaign was a failure as no measures to restrict Irish immigration were ever imposed. Equally, it has been held that politicians of all parties were either hostile or indifferent to the Church campaign. It will be demonstrated here that this was far from the case and that the Church had its supporters on all sides of the political divide and that at various times the issue was seriously considered by Governments whether Unionist, Labour or National and that arguments for restriction did not emanate solely from the Scottish Churches or indeed solely from Scotland.

Religious dissent in Scotland in the years before 1550 is best categorised as evangelical: the two characteristics which mark dissenting activity are the doct[r]ine of justification by faith alone, and the reading of the Bible in the vernacular. Dissent can be found in the southwest from lay preacher Quintin Folkhyrde in 1410 to a small but identifiable group of Lollards in Ayrshire who were tried in 1494 for group Bible reading, eschewing rituals, and challenging the authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. These 'Lollards of Kyle' were associated with the notary public Murdoch Nisbet, whose transcription of a Lollard New Testament into Scots was augmented in 1538 by the further transcription of textual aids from Miles Coverdale's edition. The Lollard group seems to have adopted the solafideism in this material, apart from their continued aversion to swearing. In the east, Luther's ideas were debated at St Andrews University in the 1520s, where Patrick Hamilton adhered to them and was burned in 1528; however, the same message of solafideist theology, Scripture reading, and perseverance in persecution was reiterated by his fellow-students John Gau and John Johnsone, in printed works which they sent home from exile. One of the primary concerns of ecclesiastical and state authorities was the availability of the New Testament in English, or other works reflecting Lutheran theology; they legislated against both owning and discussing such works. Sporadic heresy trials in the 1530s and 1540s reveal heretical belief and practice which is connected to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. In the late 1530s, a group of known evangelicals were at the court of James V: Captain John Borthwick tried to convince the king to follow the lead of Henry VIII and lay claim to church lands; Sir David Lindsay of the Mount probably wrote a play exhorting the king to enact reforms; Henry Balnaves was active after James's death in trying to forge a marriage treaty with England, which might have resulted in Henrician reforms. The governor Arran initially supported the court evangelicals, even backing a parliamentary Act allowing the reading, but not discussion, of the Bible in the vernacular. However, he reversed his policy and Balnaves, along with others, was imprisoned in Rouen, where he wrote a lengthy treatise about justification by faith alone, its effects on Christian society, and its help in times of persecution. George Wishart returned to his homeland in 1543, and began a preaching tour which took him from Angus to Kyle to East Lothian. Probably not having been guilty of the Radical beliefs laid to his charge in Bristol, Wishart held a developed Reformed theology, in addition to traditional evangelical concerns calling for a purified church guided by the Scripture principle, and drawing a sharp distinction between true and false churches. After Wishart was executed, John Knox proclaimed the Mass to be idolatrous before being imprisoned. The first Scot who appears to have moved from his basic evangelical beliefs to a functional Protestantism is Adam Wallace, a thorough sacramentarian who had baptised his own child. Upon his return in 1555, Knox took it upon him to convince the evangelicals that attendance at Mass was idolatrous, and he began administering Protestant communions. The central tenets of evangelical faith, however, continued to shape the incipient Protestant kirk.

The nineteenth century saw the revival and widespread propagation in Scotland of a view of Scottish history that put Presbyterianism at the heart of the nation's identity, and told the story of Scotland's history largely in terms of the church's struggle for religious and constitutional liberty. Key to this development was the Anti-Burgher minister Thomas M'Crie, who, spurred by attacks on Presbyterianism found in eighteenth-century and contemporary historical literature, between the years 1811 and 1819 wrote biographies of John Knox and Andrew Melville and a vindication of the Covenanters. M'Crie generally followed the very hard line found in the Whig- Presbyterian polemical literature that emerged from the struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth century; he was particularly emphatic in support of the independence of the church from the state within its own sphere. His defence of his subjects embodied a Scottish Whig interpretation of British history, in which British constitutional liberties were prefigured in Scotland and in a considerable part won for the British people by the struggles of Presbyterian Scots during the seventeenth century. M'Crie's work won a huge following among the Scottish reading public, and spawned a revival in Presbyterian historiography which lasted through the century. His influence was considerably enhanced through the affinity felt for his work by the Anti- Intrusionists in the Church of Scotland and their successors in the Free Church (1843- 1900), who were particularly attracted by his uncompromising defence of the spiritual independence of the church. The steady stream of historical works from Free Church ministers and laymen during the lifetime of the church corresponded with a very weak output of academic history, and in consequence the Free Church interpretation was probably the strongest single influence in forming the Scots' picture of their history in the late nineteenth century. Much of this interpretation, - particularly the belief in the particularly Presbyterian nature of the Scottish character and of the British constitution, was accepted by historians of the other main branches of the Presbyterian community, while the most determined opposition to the thesis was found in the work of historians of the Episcopal Church. Although the hold of the Presbyterian interpretation was weakened at the end of the century by factors including the merger of most of the Free Church in 1900 and the increasing appearance from 1900 of secular and sometimes anti-Presbyterian Scottish history, elements of it continued to influence the Scottish national self-image well into the twentieth century.

Although lay patronage was abolished in 1690, the study emphasises the importance of linking that Act with the one restoring it in 1712, since there was a difference between the landed interest and the Church in their perception of both pieces of legislation. This divergence, together with the 1690 Act's placement of the heritor class into the process of ministerial election, and the vexations caused by the Abjuration Oath, combined to create the complications which undermined the Church's ability to throw off patronage. The study questions the idea that few patronage disputes arose in the first period after the Act, and goes on to examine how the intensification of Squadrone/Argathelian rivalry in the post-Union scramble for influence drew church vacancy matters inexorably into the web of politics. The most successful manipulators of patronage were Lord Ilay and Lord Milton, and a general comparison is made between their administration and that of the Marquis of Tweeddale. Skilful management of the Church's senior courts, along with a judicious preferment of ministerial loyalists, made concerted opposition to even the worst excesses of patronage, overwhelmingly difficult. The study however draws attention to one period, between 1734 and 1736, when forces antipathetic to the abuses of patronage appeared to achieve an effective unity. Finally, the study looks beyond the influence of simple party politics, to examine what local factors may have impinged upon settlements by presentation, and to this end examines the peculiar circumstances which obtained in the Presbyteries of Edinburgh, Duns and Brechin.

In the burgh of Aberdeen in northeast Scotland, the realm's Reformation of 1559-1560 and the subsequent alteration of the religious landscape were unwelcome developments. Although national authorities required reform, the burgh's powerful governing local oligarchy, mainly comprised of wealthy Catholic burgesses, dictated the speed and shape of conformity to the new religion. Existing scholarship on Aberdeen in the 1560s has concentrated on the ways in which Aberdeen's leaders responded to the Reformation rather than the reasons behind those responses. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to further the understanding of the implementation and interpretation of the Reformation and Reformed Protestantism in Aberdeen from c. 1560 to 1568. Aberdeen's town council records from 1559 to 1568 and kirk session legislation from 1562-1563 and 1568 are the foundational primary sources for this study. Close textual analysis makes visible the many layers of meaning contained within these sources and unearths the common threads that run throughout. Additional primary sources, such Confession of Faith, Book of Discipline, and relevant entries from the records of St Andrews' kirk session, serve to place Aberdeen in the larger national context and, in many aspects, highlight the burgh's comparative religious conservatism. Chapter One of this thesis provides an overview of the national political and religious history from the early 1540s to the early 1570s. Chapter Two focuses on Aberdeen's response to the Reformation Crisis of 1559-1560 and the subsequent implementation of reform from 1560 to 1568 as administered by the burgh's civic authorities. Finally, Chapter Three explores and explains the interpretation of the Reformation and Reformed Protestantism by the town council and the kirk session. This thesis concludes that the town council of Aberdeen deftly maneuvered through the twists and turns of the Reformation and its immediate aftermath and was successful not only in retaining relative local autonomy, but also in restricting the pace and determining the character of reform. Furthermore, the burgh's kirk session sought common ground between Catholicism and Reformed Protestantism in doctrine and discipline and was able to distract attention from matters of religious belief and practice by concentrating on the regulation of moral behavior.

The 1859 revival is the most significant spiritual awakening that has affected Scotland in modern times, but it has remained little examined by scholars. This thesis aims to highlight the importance of this religious phenomenon and to analyse it in a critical manner. In the first instance, it considers the three principal traditions of revival that have evolved since the seventeenth century so that the 1859 movement can be located within this history. It also examines the various theories that have arisen during the last fifty years which have sought to explain how and why these movements have appeared at certain times and in particular contexts. It is significant that, unlike previous studies which have explored the revival from either a narrow local or broad national perspective, this thesis considers the awakening on a regional basis, covering the north east of Scotland. It analyses the manner and expression of the revival as it arose in the city of Aberdeen, in the rural hinterland of north east Scotland, and among the fishing communities along the Moray Firth. In addition, by using data from church records and the 1861 census, it determines the composition of the people who were affected by the movement in each of these three separate situations. Furthermore it investigates the factors which explain the relative failure of the revival to affect the fishing town of Peterhead. Accordingly the thesis demonstrates that the 1859 revival was not a single, uniform religious movement. On the contrary, it establishes that local factors, which include the theological and social nature of a particular context, exercised a powerful effect upon the character of this 'season of grace.

The Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 was arguably the most important event in Nineteenth Century Scottish religious history. The prime factor in the dispute which precipitated this crisis was the question as to whether the Church should rule itself through its own courts or be controlled by the secular government. This tension had existed in Scotland since shortly after the Reformation, but by the nineteenth century new factors had become involved. These included the political clash between democratic rights and the privilege of the ancien regime, the economic ability of Scots to maintain a church without state aid, the proper interpretation of Scots law, personal prejudice and bias especially on the part of Judges and politicians and, not least important, the transfer of civil government to the parliament in London with the consequent loss of contact with Scottish sensibilities. This study is concerned less with the detail of national events than with the reactions of local churchmen, both clerical and lay, to the events which occurred between 1830 and 1850. It focuses on three adjacent but dissimilar presbytery areas: the industrial area of Dundee where the leaders of public opinion were the entrepreneurial and professional members of the rising middle classes; the largely rural area of St. Andrews where public attitudes were formed by landowners and university professors; and the Cupar Presbytery area where agriculture and industry co-existed and where landowners and the middle classes shared responsibility for the general climate of opinion. This diversity of views is explored in the study as also are the reactions of various groups (e.g. , laity, clergy, students) to the judgements of the civil court concerning the Veto Act and to the campaigns for non-intrusion and spiritual Independence mounted by Church leaders. The contrasting responses of the three presbyteries to the allied issue of the Chapel Act are examined, while local preparations for the Disruption are explored in detail and set in the national context. The final sections of the study are devoted to a careful examination of the local aftermath of the Disruption: the manner in which the three Established presbyteries responded to their loss of ministers and elders and their attempts to recover their earlier social dominance; the ways in which the Free Church developed during the post Disruption years; the differences between the social and economic characteristics of those ministers and elders who adhered to the Established Church and those who joined the Free Church.

This thesis reassesses the nature and importance of the Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh and more widely. Based on a microstudy of one chapel community over a twenty-four year period, it addresses a series of questions of religion, identity, gender, culture and civic society in late Enlightenment Edinburgh, Scotland, and Britain, combining ecclesiastical, social and economic history. The study examines the congregation of Charlotte Episcopal Chapel, Rose Street, Edinburgh, from its foundation by English clergyman Daniel Sandford in 1794 to its move to the new Gothic chapel of St John's in 1818. Initially an independent chapel, Daniel Sandford's congregation joined the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1805 and the following year he was made Bishop of Edinburgh, although he contined to combine this role with that of rector to the chapel until his death in 1830. Methodologically, the thesis combines a detailed reassessment of Daniel Sandford's thought and ministry (Chapter Two) with a prosopographical study of 431 individuals connected with the congregation as officials or in the in the chapel registers (Chapter Three). Biography of the leader and prosopography of the community are brought to illuminate and enrich one another to understand the wealth and business networks of the congregation (Chapter Four) and their attitudes to politics, piety and gender (Chapter Five). The thesis argues that Daniel Sandford's Evangelical Episcopalianism was both original in Scotland, and one of the most successful in appealing to educated and influential members of Edinburgh society. The congregation, drawn largely from the newly-built West End of Edinburgh, were bourgeois and British in their composition. The core membership of privileged Scots, rooted in land and law, led, but were also challenged by and forced to adapt to a broad social spread who brought new wealth and influence into the West End through India and the consumer boom. The discussion opens up many avenues for further research including the connections between Scottish Episcopalianism and romanticism, the importance of India and social mobility within the consumer economy in the development of Edinburgh, and Scottish female intellectual culture and its engagement with religion and enlightenment. Understanding the role of enlightened, evangelical Episcopalianism, which is the contribution of this study, will form an important context for these enquiries.

This thesis is an examination of the Cistercian abbey of Coupar Angus, c.1164-c.1560, and its place within Scottish society. The subject of medieval monasticism in Scotland has received limited scholarly attention and Coupar itself has been almost completely overlooked, despite the fact that the abbey possesses one of the best sets of surviving sources of any Scottish religious house. Moreover, in recent years, long-held assumptions about the Cistercian Order have been challenged and the validity of Order-wide generalisations disputed. Historians have therefore highlighted the importance of dedicated studies of individual houses and the need to incorporate the experience of abbeys on the European ‘periphery’ into the overall narrative. This thesis considers the history of Coupar in terms of three broadly thematic areas. The first chapter focuses on the nature of the abbey’s landholding and prosecution of resources, as well as the monks’ burghal presence and involvement in trade. The second investigates the ways in which the house interacted with wider society outside of its role as landowner, particularly within the context of lay piety, patronage and its intercessory function. The final chapter is concerned with a more strictly ecclesiastical setting and is divided into two parts. The first considers the abbey within the configuration of the Scottish secular church with regards to parishes, churches and chapels. The second investigates the strength of Cistercian networks, both domestic and international. Through the exploration of these varied aspects, this study demonstrates that while Coupar maintained a strong sense of Cistercian identity and a European outlook, it was also highly enmeshed in and profoundly influenced by its immediate environment. The nature of Coupar’s experience was shaped by its locality, just as the abbey, in turn, had a reciprocal impact on its surroundings. Coupar was both a Cistercian house and a distinctively Scottish abbey.

Educational provision in Scotland was revolutionised in the fifteenth century through the foundation of three universities, or studia generale, at St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen. These institutions can be viewed as part of the general expansion in higher education across Europe from the late-fourteenth century, which saw the establishment of many new centres of learning, often intended to serve local needs. Their impact on Scotland ought to have been profound; in theory, they removed the need for its scholars to continue to seek higher education at the universities of England or the continent. Scotland’s fifteenth-century universities were essentially episcopal foundations, formally instituted by bishops within the cathedral cities of their dioceses, designed to meet the educational needs and career aspirations of the clergy. They are not entirely neglected subjects; the previous generation of university historians – including A. Dunlop, J. Durkan and L. J. Macfarlane – did much to recover the institutional, organisational and curricular developments that shaped their character. Less well explored, are the over-arching political themes that influenced the evolution of university provision in fifteenth-century Scotland as a whole. Similarly under-researched, is the impact of these foundations on the scholarly community, and society more generally. This thesis explores these comparatively neglected themes in two parts. Part I presents a short narrative, offering a more politically sensitive interpretation of the introduction and expansion of higher educational provision in Scotland. Part II explores the impact of these foundations on Scottish scholars. The nature of extant sources inhibits reconstruction of the full extent of their influence on student numbers and patterns of university attendance. Instead, Part II presents a thorough quantitative and qualitative prosopographical study of the Scottish episcopate within the context of this embryonic era of university provision in Scotland. In so doing, this thesis offers new insights into a neglected aspect of contemporary clerical culture as well as the politics of fifteenth-century academic learning.

Throughout the seventeenth century, numerous Scots became convinced that the major political and religious upheavals of their age signified the fulfillment of, or further unfolding of, the vivid prophecies described in the Book of Revelation which foretell of the final consummation of all things. To date, however, an in-depth analysis of the evolution of Scottish apocalyptic belief during the seventeenth century has never been undertaken. This thesis utilizes a wide variety of source material to demonstrate the existence of a cohesive, persistent, and largely conservative tradition of apocalyptic thought in Scotland that spanned the years 1588 to 1688. Chapter One examines several influential commentaries on the Book of Revelation published by notable Scots during the decades either side of the Union of Crowns. These works reveal many of the principal characteristics that formed the basis of the Scottish apocalyptic tradition. The most important of these traits which became a consistent feature of the tradition was the rejection of millenarianism. In recent years, historians have exaggerated the influence of millenarian ideals in Scotland during the Covenanting movement which began in 1638. Chapter Two argues that Scottish Covenanters consistently denounced millenarianism as a dangerous, subversive doctrine that could lead to the religious radicalism espoused by sixteenth-century German Anabaptists. Chapter Three looks at political and religious factors which led to the general decline of apocalyptic expectancy in Scotland during the Interregnum. It also demonstrates how, despite this decline, Scottish apocalyptic thinkers continued to uphold the primary traits of the apocalyptic tradition which surfaced over the first half of the century. Lastly, Chapter Four explains how state-enforced religious persecution of Scottish Presbyterians during the Restoration period led to the radicalisation of the tradition and inspired the violent actions of Covenanter extremists who believed they had been chosen by God to act as instruments of his divine vengeance in the latter-days.

This thesis is an examination of the eucharistic doctrine of ten Scottish theological writers in the tradition of Scottish Episcopacy; five from the seventeenth century, two from the eighteenth century, and three from the nineteenth century. The doctrine espoused by each one throughout the stated period, 1620–1875, is found to agree with the other writers considered herein, because each writer turned to many of the same Church Fathers as the source of his doctrine and his interpretation of Holy Scripture. The argument of this thesis is that all of the writers, rejecting the Tridentine, Lutheran, Bezan-Calvinist, and Zwinglian definitions of the Eucharist, maintained a material sacrifice in the Eucharist, which is an offering to God the Father of bread and wine as the propitiatory memorial of Christ’s death on the Cross, commanded by Christ himself at the Last Supper. The sacrifice is propitiatory because it is the means of representing the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross to God the Father, thereby pleading the benefits of the Cross for the communicants. The bread and wine do not change substance, but become effectively the body and blood of Christ. Three of the ten writers produced eucharistic rites, one in the seventeenth century, and two in the eighteenth century. It is argued that each of these rites is expressive of the Eucharist as being a commemorative and representative sacrifice. Each rite explicitly offers bread and wine to the Father, invokes the Holy Spirit’s action over the elements, and prays that by receiving the consecrated bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ, the communicants will receive the forgiveness of sins, the continuing grace of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2008.
Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education, Department of Religious Education and the Department of Educational Studies, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Creating moralistic societies was a concern of the churches and the governments of Scotland and the American colonies of New York and New Jersey in the eighteenth century. However, church and state relations in Scotland and the American colonies were dissimilar and the differences manifested themselves in the various approaches taken by each body to suppress the immoral behaviour that existed in both countries. By examining the disciplinary procedures and cases in the parishes of the Presbytery of St Andrews and the Presbyterian churches in the colonies of New York and New Jersey, these divergences emerge and illuminate the relationship between church and state. The Church of Scotland was recognized as the established church by the state and was allowed to implement its own Presbyterian system of government and discipline according to its ecclesiastical doctrines and theological beliefs. The state utilized its legal systems to punish and correct immoral behaviour. In Scotland, the two systems had defined boundaries and complemented one another in their efforts to suppress immorality. However, not only did the American colonies lack a centralized state until 1776, but the colonies also lacked an established church. Alternatively, each colony had its own governing bodies, judicial systems, and a variety of church denominations. The Presbyterian Church, one of the many churches in the colonies of New York and New Jersey, utilised a Presbyterian system of ecclesiastical discipline in order to supplement the judicial systems' attempts to suppress immorality within the colonies.

This thesis offers a new interpretation of the origins of eighteenth-century popular political consciousness in Scotland during the second half of the eighteenth century by considering the relationship between Presbyterianism, literacy and political activity, and it examines the long-standing enmity to the authority of the elite expressed through patronage disputes, the burgh reform movement and opposition to Catholic relief. In particular it discusses the ongoing debate over lay ecclesiastical patronage arguing that religious dispute was a major stimulus to the process of politicising ordinary people. This process was aided by the inherent radicalism within Presbyterianism which was egalitarian and anti-hierarchical, and which was used to justify inclusion in the political process. It also emphasises the continuing relevance of Scotland’s Covenanting tradition for people from all walks of life who engaged with ideas predominantly through polemical religious books, particularly Covenanting theology and history, and it argues that the clergy provided a crucial link between the general populace and the issues of the day through their ability to draw people into contemporary debate as a result of their preaching and publications.

John Erskine was the leading Evangelical in the Church of Scotland in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Educated in an enlightened setting at Edinburgh University, he learned to appreciate the epistemology of John Locke and other empiricists alongside key Scottish Enlightenment figures such as his ecclesiastical rival, William Robertson. Although groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer, Erskine changed career paths in order to become a minister of the Kirk. He was deeply moved by the endemic revivals in the west of Scotland and determined that his contribution to the burgeoning Evangelical movement on both sides of the Atlantic would be much greater as a clergyman than a lawyer. Yet Erskine was no ‘enthusiast’. He integrated the style and moral teachings of the Enlightenment into his discourses and posited new theories on traditional views of Calvinism in his theological treatises. Erskine’s thought, however, never transgressed the boundaries of orthodoxy. His goal was to update Evangelical Calvinism with the new style and techniques of the Enlightenment without sacrificing the gospel message. While Erskine was widely recognised as an able preacher and theologian, his primary contribution to Evangelicalism was as a disseminator. He sent correspondents like the New England pastor Jonathan Edwards countless religious and philosophical works so that he and others could learn about current ideas, update their writings to conform to the Age of Reason and provide an apologetic against perceived heretical authors. Erskine also was crucial in the publishing of books and pamphlets by some of the best Evangelical theologians in America and Britain. Within his lifetime, Erskine’s main contribution to Evangelicalism was as a propagator of an enlightened form of Calvinism.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006.
Title from title screen. Ian Christopher Fletcher, committee chair; Duane J Corpis, committee member. Electronic text (180 p.). Description based on contents viewed May 8, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-180).

Since its foundation between 1410 and 1414 the University of St Andrews has acquired what can be considered to be ‘artefacts of significance’. This somewhat nebulous phrase is used to denote items that have, for a variety of reasons, been deemed to have some special import by the University, and have been displayed or otherwise presented in a context in which this status has been made apparent. The types of artefacts in which particular meaning has been vested during the centuries under consideration include items of silver and gold (including the maces, sacramental vessels of the Collegiate Church of St Salvator, collegiate plate and relics of the Silver Arrow archery competition); church and college furnishings; artworks (particularly portraits); sculpture; and ethnographic specimens and other items described in University records as ‘curiosities’ held in the University Library from c. 1700-1838. The identification of particular artefacts as significant for certain reasons in certain periods, and their presentation and display, may to some extent reflect the University's values, preoccupations and aspirations in these periods, and, to some degree, its identity. Consciously or subconsciously, the objects can be employed or operate as signifiers of meaning, representing or reflecting matters such as the status, authority and history of the University, its breadth of learning and its interest and influence in spheres from science, art and world cultures to national affairs. This thesis provides a comprehensive examination of the growth and development of the University's holdings of 'artefacts of significance' from its foundation to the mid-19th century, and in some cases (especially portraits) beyond this date. It also offers insights into how the University viewed and presented these items and what this reveals about the University of St Andrews, its identity, which changed and developed as the living institution evolved, and the impressions that it wished to project.

This dissertation ethnographically examines media-political power relations during the negotiations, ratification and implementation stages of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement marks the latest effort to construct an 'agreed-upon' state where none has previously existed. This effort is contextualized within the socio-economic changes brought about by an emergent 'Celtic Tiger' Irish economy and set against Unionist opposition to the peace process, as expressed by the Loyalist Marching Season and the annual violence around the Drumcree Church Parade. These processes are further contextualized within the long historical processes that gave rise to contending Irish and British nationalisms and the role of the news media in producing them. Drawing on Gramsci, Weber, Anderson, dialogic and articulation theory, this work argues that the nation-state is historically 'produced' and---if successful---its ideals are embodied by those who claim that nationality as a part of their identity. If so, then the project of producing the nation-state is ongoing process where the ideological ties that bind members of that community to each other and to the state must be constantly reinforced and re-articulated in order to sustain that nation-state. Hegemonic and coercive strategies are seen here as intertwined tactics of power that shape and define the social fabric of any cultural matrix---including historic blocs and nation-states---conditioning and shaping the terms of discourse and parameters of violence. As Foucault pointed out, these relations trace their way upward from the micro-physics of meaning/value production upward to larger social value/meaning systems, including news production and ethno-political struggle. This dissertation explores the ways the news media and the political realm---including international capital and the state---overdetermine each other and shape the terms of political discourse and the capacity to express violence. This work also explores the limits of media-based, political strategies to gain popular consent. In the intimate social landscape of Northern Ireland converges with the historically deep argument over national aspiration, to reveal the fragility and contingent character of the nation-state project and the limits of state-inspired propaganda campaigns to gain consent.

Text in English
This dissertation offers an analysis of Scottish Presbyterian Church mission policy during the period, 1898 - 1923. The study contains an examination of historiographical methodology, the historical background both in Scotland and South Africa along with the multi-faceted dimensions within the South African context of the time. The Mzimba Secession provides an appropriate historical starting point which led to a serious disruption of the Mission. The role of the major participants, black ministers and elders and missionaries, is assessed as a struggle between them and the Foreign Mission Committee of the United Free Church of Scotland, following the union of two churches in 1900, took place involving the various policy options. This eventually led to the formation of the Bantu Presbyterian Church of South Africa.
Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology
M. Th. (Missiology)

Southern Celts, a practise-led narrative inquiry (Arnold, 2007; Gray, 1997; Stewart, 2001), explores how people with Scottish and Irish backgrounds live out their cultural connections to the northern hemisphere homelands, while living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Using narrative as method and text (Clandinin, 2007; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012; Reissman, 2008), the inquiry combines journalistic (Jeppesen & Hansen, 2011), autoethnographic (Bochner & Riggs, 2014; Chang, 2008; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Holman-Jones, Adams & Ellis, 2013), and arts-based methods (Butler-Kisber, 2010; Chilton & Leavy, 2014; Leavy, 2009), with ethnographic and phenomenological insights (Maddison, 2008; Tedlock, 2000; Van Manen, 1990) to represent 25 of 40 interviews in an artefact, a book of interview narratives, intended to engage and inform a wide audience of general readers. These “lived and told stories” (Pinnegar & Danes, 2007) are situated in a visual metaphor from traditional Celtic art, that of spirals which envisage life moving across time and place. This movement is paralleled in the exegesis by the use of Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) three frames of narrative inquiry: time (past, present and future), place, and the intersection of the personal and the social, to view the narratives which record the lives of individuals, multi-generational families, communities geographic and cultural, past and present, and illustrate the discursive construction of culture/s and identity/ies (Fong & Chang, 2004; Norton, 1995, 2000, 2010; Weedon 1997, 2004).

In 'Political Atheism vs. The Divine Right of Kings,' I build on Thompson and Scrivener’s work analysing John Thelwall’s play 'The Fairy of the Lake' as a political allegory, arguing all religious symbolism in 'FL' to advance the traditionally Revolutionary thesis that “the King is not a God.” My first chapter contextualises Thelwall’s revival of 17th century radicalism during the French Revolution and its failure. My second chapter examines how Thelwall’s use of fire as a symbol discrediting the Saxons’ pagan notion of divine monarchy, also emphasises the idolatrous apotheosis of King Arthur. My third chapter deconstructs the Fairy of the Lake’s water and characterisation, and concludes her sole purpose to be to justify a Revolution beyond moral reproach. My fourth chapter traces how beer satirises Communion wine, among both pagans and Christians, in order to undermine any religion that could reinforce either divinity or the Divine Right of Kings.
A close reading of an all-but-forgotten Arthurian play as an allegory against the Divine Right of Kings.