Scottish Witchcraft Narratives and Tracts

$60.00

This book is a scholarly edition of primary sources for witch-hunting and demonic possession in Scotland. It contains narratives of remarkable witchcraft prosecutions, and tracts expounding witchcraft theory.

The narratives provide the intense emotional drama, eye-catching colour and nightmarish horror that made witchcraft such a compelling idea. The accused witches' own voices are sometimes heard, under the harrowing circumstances of interrogation under torture. Meanwhile, educated ministers and lawyers develop their theoretical ideas about witches and the Devil. Not every theorist agrees with the prosecutions, and doubts arise that would eventually lead witch-hunting to lose its credibility. The book's most detailed narrative concerns the Bargarran witches of 1697, in which seven witches were executed for the demonic possession of the 11-year-old Christian Shaw. The book shows how this was connected with the sensational witchcraft panic in 1692 at Salem, Massachusetts.

Cover image for Scottish Witchcraft Narratives and Tracts, isbn: 9780906245521

Miscellany XVII

$60.00

The seventeenth volume in the Scottish History Society's Miscellany series, showcasing editions of unpublished short texts.

Volume XVII of the Scottish History Society's Miscellany includes editions of nine unpublished short texts dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. These include a rich range of legal, economic, and intellectual documents ranging from an "Essay on Resistance to Magistrates" (c.1637-38), to a poem on the appointment of a judge at Melrose in 1682, to new material on the (in)famous physician and philosopher Archibald Pitcairne. This volume continues the Society's programme of making previously unpublished and unedited primary sources for Scotland's history available in scholarly and accessible forms.

Cover image for Miscellany XVII, isbn: 9780906245514

Scottish Witchcraft Trials

$65.00

This book presents a selection of original texts of Scottish witchcraft trial records, with historical commentary. These are the essential sources for understanding the intensity of witch-hunting in Scotland.

Witchcraft was a statutory offence in Scotland between 1563 and 1736, and the authorities held many trials and executions for witchcraft in this period. This book presents a representative selection of original records of these trials, with historical commentary. The documents are selected mainly from the records of local kirk sessions, presbyteries and burghs, and the central justiciary court. Some records include statements by neighbours about alleged bewitchment; these narrate quarrels, illness and healing, and misfortunes in everyday life. In other records, the accused witches themselves are interrogated about alleged dealings with the Devil; the resulting confessions can include fantastical accounts of visionary experiences and encounters with fairies. Each case has its own uniqueness; these are all individual human stories, often tragic ones. The records show the local church authorities, and the criminal courts, investigating and unwittingly creating an impossible crime.

Florentius Volusenus: Christian Humanist

$60.00

Study and translation of the religious and philosophical work by this Scottish-born, France-based Renaissance humanist and educator.

The Commentatio quaedam theologica of Florentius Volusenus (c.1504-c.1557) is a religious and philosophical work of the Renaissance, cast in the form of rhetorical aphorisms. Volusenus was an admirer of Erasmus, tutored the son of Cardinal Wolsey, and was close to the circles around Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. In Paris he received patronage from prominent humanist ecclesiastics, as also from bishop Jacopo Sadoleto at Carpentras. A colleague at Lyon of the poet Barthélemy Aneau, he taught Sebastian Castellio, who later broke with Calvin. Volusenus, an eirenic Catholic, favoured Church reform before the Reformation became irreversible.

Florentius Volusenus: Christian Humanist

Personal Correspondence of Sir John Bellenden of Auchnoull and His Circle, 1560-1582

$60.00

This collection of forty-nine letters, edited in full here for the first time, are addressed to Sir John Bellenden of Auchnoull (1520?-1576) or members of his circle and offer a precious window onto the turbulent and often obscure history of Orkney and Shetland in the sixteenth century as the Northern Isles were subject to increasing intervention from the Scottish mainland. Anderson and Ballantyne provide an extensive contextual introduction and annotate the letters themselves as well as providing a glossary of the more obscure Middle Scots words used. This edition will join previous works by these two authors, including Anderson's monographs on the Stewart earls of Orkney and Ballantyne's Shetland Documents, as an indispensable resource for the early modern history of the Northern Isles.

Personal Correspondence of Sir John Bellenden of Auchnoull and His Circle, 1560-1582

Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, volume XVI

$60.00

Edited transcriptions, with full notes, of unpublished documents from early modern Scottish history - with subject matter including witchcraft and ghosts.

The Miscellany of the Scottish History Society brings together critical editions of important and previously unpublished manuscripts of relevance to Scottish history. As well as providing transcriptions, the editors introduce and explain the context of documents which have been neglected or even unknown to historians, providing a valuable resource for researchers, students, and all those interested in exploring Scottish istory through the original sources.
This sixteenth volume focuses on the early modern period, presenting editions of five sources from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. Ranging widely over the political and social history of the period, the collection uncovers previously unpublished material which will be of value to anyone interested in witchcraft, ghosts and the supernatural, religious controversy, royal accounts and the social and demographic history of theperiod. Together, the documents comprise an essential collection for the study of early modern Scottish History, and help to illuminate the wealth of unpublished sources still waiting to be explored.

Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, volume XVI

The Minutes of the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, 1648-1659

$60.00

Edition of the minutes of one of the most important ecclesiastical bodies in Scotland shows their response to Cromwell's invasion.

In the summer of 1650, an English army led by Oliver Cromwell crossed the River Tweed and invaded Scotland. Within less than a year, Edinburgh had fallen to the invading force and Presbyterian ministers across the Central Belt either fled to safer ground or remained to preach against Cromwell's agenda. The invasion brought with it ideas of a new religious settlement, a reorganisation of the civil administration of Scotland and a large body of men that needed housing, food and discipline.
The Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale was one of the most senior ecclesiastical meetings in Scotland to face the English invasion. The meticulous record keeping of its scribes allows an insight into the local response, showing the complexity and negotiation of ecclesiastical government in wartime. The Synod took on a new significance during the 1650s by marshaling the national response to the English invasion, organisingcharitable events for those captured abroad and ensuring that ministers across the region maintained orthodoxy in such a difficult time.
The minutes, previously scattered, are painstakingly stitched together in this volume, and are presented with full introduction and explanatory notes.

Christopher R. Langley is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern British History at Newman University, Birmingham.

The Minutes of the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, 1648-1659

Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs, 1555; 1631-1648

$60.00

Material from conventions of Scottish parliamentary towns sheds fresh light on their activities and actions, from giving judgements in disputes to raising money for building projects.

The convention of the royal burghs of Scotland was a national representative assembly of parliamentary towns that was unique in Europe. It met in plenary session at least once every year by the end of the sixteenth century, as well as convening in ad hoc sessions for specific business. It had a wide range of responsibilities, including defence of the burghs' collective and individual trading privileges, lobbying central government, promoting manufactures and trade, arbitrating in disputes between burghs, apportioning national taxes among its members, co-ordinating the raising of money for public building projects within burghs, and maintaining and regulating the Scottish staple port at Veere on what was then the island of Walcheren in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands.
When much of its records were published in the nineteenth century, minutes from before the 1580s were fragmentary and awhole volume (covering the years 1631-1649) was lost. This volume goes some way to rectifying these deficiencies by making available in print, for the first time, the records of a convention at Perth in 1555, those of most of theconventions between 1631 and 1636, the minutes of a convention from 1647 and some other papers from the 1640s. They are presented here with an introduction and elucidatory notes.

Alan MacDonald is senior lecturer in History at the University of Dundee; Mary Verschuur lectured in the department of History at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs, 1555; 1631-1648

Addresses Against Incorporating Union, 1706-1707

$60.00

Edition of documents protesting against the Scottish and English Union.

In 1706-1707, a proposed union of the Scottish and English kingdoms excited vigorous debate. Dozens of Scottish burghs, shires and parishes sent petitions to the Scottish parliament, known as addresses, to protest against the treaty of union. The addresses reveal local opinions and feelings, as expressed through a sophisticated petitioning campaign. They show how Presbyterians and Jacobites joined in an oppositional coalition, which disagreed on most matters of church and state, but agreed to oppose the union. Thousands of male tenant farmers, artisans and servants subscribed with their own hands, or via notaries and church elders. Campaigners argued that these opinions mattered and that parliament should listen to the "mind of the nation". Though ultimately unsuccessful, the campaign had a strong impact on the shape of the union.
This volume provides a transcript of each local voice from the originalhandwritten documents, explaining the circumstances in relation to the voting patterns of members of the Scottish Parliament. An introduction sets the addresses in their historical context.

Karin Bowie is a historian ofScotland, specialising in the study of early modern public opinion. She lectures in Scottish history at the University of Glasgow.

Addresses Against Incorporating Union, 1706-1707

Scottish Schools and Schoolmasters, 1560-1633

$60.00

A rich and comprehensive picture of schools and school education in early modern Scotland.

1560 is a crucial date in the development of Scottish education, for it was in this year that the First Book of Discipline set out its ambitious project of providing a school in every notable town. This book, the result of exhaustive archival research and extensive use of the Registers of Deeds (which offer evidence of schoolmasters so described, as witnesses to legal documents), provides an indepth and wide-ranging analysis of education during the period,considered in its full religious, social and cultural setting. The curriculum receives particular attention, with its emphasis on music drawn out. The volume also presents a list of all identified Scottish schools and schoolmasters from the Protestant Reformation down to 1633.

The late Dr John Durkan (1914-2006), historian and schoolmaster and a co-founder of the Innes Review, left a published legacy of hundreds of articles on Scottish intellectual and religious life in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and helped change the face of Scottish historiography. He was latterly a Senior Honorary Research Fellow of his alma mater, Glasgow University.

Scottish Schools and Schoolmasters, 1560-1633

The McCulloch Examinations of the Cambuslang Revival (1742): A Critical Edition [2 volume set]

$85.00

First published edition of what has been described as "one of the most remarkable testimonies of eighteenth-century piety ever compiled".

In recent decades scholars have rediscovered a handwritten source of historical documentation from the eighteenth-century transatlantic religious movement known as "The Great Awakening". The McCulloch Examinations manuscripts contain more than a hundred first-person conversion narratives from the Cambuslang Revival of 1742 that have never before been published in their entirety. Collected and compiled by Reverend William McCulloch in what was Scotland's first oral history project, these personal accounts open a unique window into the early modern Scottish soul and shed new light upon an important chapter of British and American history.
In this first complete, unabridged and fully annotated edition of the Examinations, the editor offers an introduction and analysis of these fascinating narratives, and provides supplementary resources that will illuminate the text for the reader. In addition to preserving the narrative accounts in their original frame, the edition includes the proposed redactions and marginal comments of four prominent Church of Scotland clergy who assisted McCulloch with the project.

Keith Edward Beebe is Professor of Church History in the Department of Theology at Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington, and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA.

The McCulloch <I>Examinations</I> of the Cambuslang Revival (1742): A Critical Edition [2 volume set]

The Perth Kirk Session Books, 1577-1590

$60.00

Sixteenth-century documents from the parochial church court reveal huge detail about the daily lives of ordinary Scottish townspeople of the time.

The Calvinist Reformation in Scottish towns was a radically transformative movement. It incorporated into urban ecclesiastical governance a group of laymen - the elders of the kirk session - drawn heavily from the crafts guilds aswell as wealthy merchants. These men met at least weekly with the minister and comprised a parochial church court that exercised an unprecedented discipline of the lives of the ordinary citizenry. They pried into sexual behaviour, administered the hospital and other poor relief, ordered fostering of orphans, oversaw the grammar school, enforced sabbath observance, investigated charges of witchcraft, arbitrated quarrels and punished people who railed at their neighbours. In times of crisis like the great plague of 1584-85, they rationed food sent from other towns and raised an already high bar on moral discipline to avert further divine wrath.
The minute books of Perth's session, established in the 1560s and surviving most fully from 1577, open a window on this religious discipline, the men who administered it, and the lay people who both resisted and facilitated it, negotiating its terms to meet theirown agendas. They are presented here with full introduction and explanatory notes.

Margo Todd is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania.

The General Account Book of John Clerk of Penicuik, 1663-1674

$60.00

Edition of a wealthy merchant's accounts sheds fascinating insights into life at the time.

The household account book of John Clerk of Penicuik, a Montrose-born merchant who honed his skills in Paris and brought home to Scotland a small fortune which he used to purchase the barony of Penicuik in 1654, provides an opportunity to explore the multifaceted life of a seventeenth-century merchant, moneylender, and improving landlord. This volume presents for the first time a full scholarly edition of the accounts. A prodigious bookkeeper, Clerk maintained incredibly detailed, and personally annotated, accounts which support the contemporary assessment that held him to be "a man of great sense and great application to busines"'. Uniquely, Clerk's tendency to add emotive statements or direct commentary to his detailed accounting of household expenditures sets these accounts apart from similar account books from this period. As this volume also shows, they reveal a businessman that did not suffer fools gladly and a devoted and loving husband and father who worked tirelessly to secure a future for his children, the estate, and his family name. Showcasing the household's expenditures, Clerk's accounts list a vast array of consumables and durables, his family's material support and the cost of educating his children, as well as disbursements to labourers, domestic servants, doctors, and various factors operating on behalf of Clerk and his family. Collectively, the material found in these records can contribute to broader inquiries into domestic consumption, the improvement of landed estates, gendered spending patterns, the employment of labour, household priorities, material culture, and identities and consumer behaviour in the last half of the seventeenth century.

This edition makes accessible a full edition of the accounts themselves, as well an extensive historical and historiographical introduction placing the accounts in their wider context and helping the reader to use and interpret the accounts. It also benefits from a full glossary of terminology used by Clerk. Covering the period from 1663 to Clerk's death in 1674, this volume presents the reader with an opportunity to pull back the curtains, open the cupboards, peer into the closets, and gaze onto the fields of a seventeenth-century laird's estate.

The General Account Book of John Clerk of Penicuik, 1663-1674

Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, volume XV

$60.00

Collections of three important early modern documents from Scotland, providing crucial information on life at the time.

The Miscellany of the Scottish History Society brings together critical editions of important and previously unpublished manuscripts of relevance to Scottish History. As well as providing transcriptions, the editors introduce and explain the context of documents which have been neglected or even unknown to historians, providing a valuable resource for researchers, students, and all those interested in exploring Scottish history through the originalsources.
Volume XV focuses on the turbulent middle decades of the seventeenth century, offering editions of three vital but previously unpublished manuscript sources for this period: the Letter-Book of John Clerk of Penicuik, 1644-1645; the Minute Book of The Board Of The Green Cloth, July 1650 - July 1651; and the Records of the Anglo-Scottish Union Negotiations, 1652-1653. With a particular emphasis on the economic and political history of the period, the records offer valuable insights on trade networks and commodities, and on the upheavals following in the wake of the execution of Charles I. They also help to place Scottish history in a wider British and European context, by highlighting mercantile networks and the negotiations for Anglo-Scottish Union under Oliver Cromwell. Together, they comprise an essential resource for those interested in seventeenth-century history.

Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, volume XV

The McCulloch Examinations of the Cambuslang Revival (1742): A Critical Edition. Volume I

$60.00

First published edition of what has been described as "one of the most remarkable testimonies of eighteenth-century piety ever compiled".

In recent decades scholars have rediscovered a handwritten source of historical documentation from the eighteenth-century transatlantic religious movement known as "The Great Awakening". The McCulloch Examinations manuscripts contain more than a hundred first-person conversion narratives from the Cambuslang Revival of 1742 that have never before been published in their entirety. Collected and compiled by Reverend William McCulloch in what was Scotland's first oral history project, these personal accounts open a unique window into the early modern Scottish soul and shed new light upon an important chapter of British and American history.
In this first complete, unabridged and fully annotated edition of the Examinations, the editor offers an introduction and analysis of these fascinating narratives, and provides supplementary resources that will illuminate the text for the reader. In addition to preserving the narrative accounts in their original frame, the edition includes the proposed redactions and marginal comments of four prominent Church of Scotland clergy who assisted McCulloch with the project.

Keith Edward Beebe is Professor of Church History in the Department of Theology at Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington, and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA.

The McCulloch <I>Examinations</I> of the Cambuslang Revival (1742): A Critical Edition. Volume I

The Poems of Roderick MacLean

$135.00

Roderick MacLean / Ruairidh MacEachainn MhicIllEathan (d. 1553) was commendator of the Abbey of Iona, Bishop of the Isles, and member of an extended kindred who had close connections to Iona and its abbey.

Roderick MacLean / Ruairidh MacEachainn MhicIllEathan (d. 1553) was commendator of the Abbey of Iona, Bishop of the Isles, and member of an extended kindred who had close connections to Iona and its abbey. After studying on the continent he held a series of ecclesiastical posts in Scotland and spent multiple sojourns on church business in Rome. During his time there in 1549 he saw through the press his Ionis Liber, or Book of the Song of Iona, a paraphrase in neo-classical Latin verse of selected chapters from Adomnán's Life of Columba.

Only three copies of this rare Pre-Reformation text survive, one in Aberdeen and two in Perugia, so that Macquarrie and Green's edition makes it accessible to a wider readership for the first time. As well as an edition of the Latin text, they provide an English prose translation, editions and translations of other smaller works by MacLean, extensive commentary, appendices of material in the Vatican Archives relevant to MacLean's career, an extensive bibliography and index. This will be essential reading for any students or scholars interested in Neo-Latin, Gaelic culture, and the Scottish Reformation.

Edinburgh Housemails Taxation Book, 1634-1636

$60.00

First printed edition of an inventory of Edinburgh's properties, offering a fascinating snapshot of the fabric of a seventeenth-century European capital city.

In 1633, plans were made for a new one-off tax on house-rent, or "mail", intended to pay the stipends of Edinburgh's clergy. At the request of Charles I, full power and commission was given "for passing through the whole city andtrying of what mail every tenement, dwelling house, low tavern, cellar or chamber", and an inventory was taken, which survives in manuscript form in the Edinburgh City Archives. While it would seem that the tax was never actuallycollected and so was a failure in terms of municipal fund-raising, it left an incredibly detailed record of the socio-economic and political structures of the Scottish capital. Giving information on landlords, tenants, rental andannuity for over 900 businesses and 3,900 houses, the record enables the topographies of Edinburgh down to house-by-house level to be reconstructed; whilst Cardinal Beaton's Lodgings, or the Pudding Market, no longer survive, theinventory sheds important light on these missing structures and allows for a fuller interpretation of the still extant buildings, such as Mary King's Close, or Gladstone's Land.
Now published in its entirety for the first time, this valuable record gives us an exceptional view of an early modern capital and an unprecedented insight into the socio-economic composition and landscape of early modern Edinburgh, forming an invaluable resource for those interested in topics such as the demographic and economic history of preindustrial towns, urban topography and the local and genealogical history of Scotland's capital. It is particularly useful in illuminating those sections of society so often hidden from history, and giving a rare window into the people and property of Edinburgh on the eve of revolution.
The volume also includes an extensive historical introduction explaining the nature, context and utility of the records.

Dr Aaron Allen is a Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow in Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh, where he teaches history for the Office of Lifelong Learning; Dr Cathryn Spence is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Edinburgh Housemails Taxation Book, 1634-1636

The Autobiography of Arthur Woodburn (1890-1978)

$60.00

Modern edition of the autobiography of a significant figure in the Scottish Labour Party in the mid-twentieth century.

Arthur Woodburn's autobiography provides an exceptionally rich insight into the development of labour politics in Scotland in the first half of the twentieth century, into the experience of coalition government during the Second World War and of reconstruction and the government of Scotland in its aftermath. Woodburn was prominent within the labour movement and the Labour Party, but unlike many of his contemporaries his autobiography was never published atthe time. It records his Edinburgh childhood, his route to socialism, his imprisonment as a conscientious objector during the First World War, educational and journalistic activities as well as his official roles in the Labour Party and government during the 1930s and 40s.
This volume provides a clear annotated modern edition of Woodburn's text, together with a full scholarly introduction explaining the historical significance of the autobiography and Woodburn himself.

The Autobiography of Arthur Woodburn (1890-1978)

The McCulloch Examinations of the Cambuslang Revival (1742): A Critical Edition.Volume II

$60.00

First published edition of what has been described as "one of the most remarkable testimonies of eighteenth-century piety ever compiled".

In recent decades scholars have rediscovered a handwritten source of historical documentation from the eighteenth-century transatlantic religious movement known as "The Great Awakening". The McCulloch Examinations manuscripts contain more than a hundred first-person conversion narratives from the Cambuslang Revival of 1742 that have never before been published in their entirety. Collected and compiled by Reverend William McCulloch in what was Scotland's first oral history project, these personal accounts open a unique window into the early modern Scottish soul and shed new light upon an important chapter of British and American history.
In this first complete, unabridged and fully annotated edition of the Examinations, the editor offers an introduction and analysis of these fascinating narratives, and provides supplementary resources that will illuminate the text for the reader. In addition to preserving the narrative accounts in their original frame, the edition includes the proposed redactions and marginal comments of four prominent Church of Scotland clergy who assisted McCulloch with the project.

Keith Edward Beebe is Professor of Church History in the Department of Theology at Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington, and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA.

The McCulloch <I>Examinations</I> of the Cambuslang Revival (1742): A Critical Edition.Volume II

Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, volume XIV

$60.00

Hitherto unpublished documents from early modern Scotland offer fascinating insights into contemporary life.

Miscellanies published by the Scottish History Society bring together critical editions of important and previously unpublished manuscripts of relevance to Scottish history. As well as providing transcriptions, the editors introduce and explain the context of documents which have been neglected or even unknown to historians, providing a valuable resource for researchers, students, and all those interested in exploring Scottish history through the originalsources.
Volume XIV of the Miscellany focuses on the early modern period, presenting editions of six manuscripts from the late sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries. While ranging widely over the political, religious, social and environmental history of the period, there is an emphasis on the writings of the clergy, and the religious culture of the long post-Reformation period. Several of the entries shed considerable light, for example, on evangelicalism in the first half of the eighteenth century. Together, the documents comprise an essential collection for the study of early modern Scottish History, and help to illuminate the body of unpublished sources still waiting tobe explored.

Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, volume XIV

Travels in Scotland, 1788-1881

$36.95

Journals from early "tourists" in Scotland provide a vivid record of the joys (and otherwise) of travel.

Tourist travelling changed remarkably between 1780 and 1880, and the six accounts collected here help us to see how and why. Whether by a well-off and intrepid lady, a self-important youth, a young man and his parents, or an overweight middle-aged lawyer, what they have in common is a relish for the pleasures of discovery, of holidaymaking, of finding a Scotland for themselves. The writers travel, they see, they listen (some more than others), enjoy good weather (and endure the frequently bad), take in the scenery and sights, and talk with other visitors and locals. Theirs are intimate voices - they were writing for themselves, or friends or family, not for the public - but as we eavesdrop on them a larger picture unfolds. Travelling conditions vary: the first account shows to a world of elite travel, the private coach, and the privileges enjoyed by the well-heeled, while the last is the homely and charmingdescription of a one-week holiday taken with relatives in the country. In between comes the new world of travel: the steamer, the railway and the guidebook.
A general preface by the editor sets these pieces in their historical and social context, and a selection of photographs and sketches drawn from two of the accounts complements these hitherto unpublished visitors' narratives.

Alastair J. Durie is Teaching Fellow at the University of Scotland and Associate Lecturer at the Open University.