Rethinking the Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland

Rethinking the Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland Synopsis

This collection of essays, in honour of Professor Roger A. Mason, critically re-assesses what we understand by the terms "Renaissance" and "Reformation" in Scottish History. Roger Mason's research in the field of pre-modern Scottish history has proved ground-breaking and iconoclastic. He recast late-medieval Stewart kingship within the framework of renaissance monarchy and Christian humanism; led the application of intellectual- and literary-historical approaches to early modern Scottish studies; and produced novel and highly influential analyses of a wide canon of key texts, from Mair's History of Greater Britain to the writings of John Knox and George Buchanan. This volume celebrates his "rethinking" of the Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland by applying the core elements of his historical approach to a broader temporal period between the fourteenth and early seventeenth centuries and to a new range of texts. Its essays, by leading scholars of pre-modern Scotland, explore aspects of the cultural transition from medieval to renaissance, the role of historical memory in defining and redefining Scottish identity, the interface between literature, politics and religion in a period of confessional strife and, above all, the importance of ideas in shaping the political and religious outlook of pre-modern Scots.