Civic Reformation and Religious Change in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Towns

Explains the importance of townspeople to the success of the Scottish Reformation of 1559-60 This book asks why Scottish Reformed Protestants were more successful than their European counterparts in imposing a thorough religious reformation on their country. It argues that the cooperation and acquiescence of townspeople was crucial to their success. Timothy Slonosky demonstrates that Scottish town councils exercised extensive control over religious practices within their burghs, creating a form of 'civic religion'. As such, it was only with the cooperation of municipal authorities that the Calvinist Protestants were able to implement religious changes after their military and political victory in 1560. The councillors and townspeople gave this support not because they thought the Catholic church was corrupt - as traditional and even recent histories have assumed - but because it was ineffective: having been shaken by crises of plague, war and economic collapse, townspeople were anxious to avoid further conflict and came to believe that God was punishing them for their sins. As a result, the Protestant revolutionaries faced little popular opposition and Scotland avoided the religious division and violence of other contemporary Reformations in France and the Low Countries. Key Features - Proposes an explanation for the relative absence of popular religious violence during the Scottish Reformation - Demonstrates the key role of Scottish town councils in governing local religion - Shows how the wars and plague of the 1540s opened townspeople to religious change - Uses burgh records from previously unstudied towns (Dundee, Haddington and Stirling), in different regions of Scotland, to draw conclusions about Scotland as a whole - Explains why Scottish Protestants were more successful than contemporary French and Dutch Protestants Timothy Slonosky is a Professor in the Humanities Department of Dawson College.