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The renaissance tradition in the reformed church of Scotland1(presidential address)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

James K. Cameron
James K. Cameron*
Affiliation:
St Mary's CollegeUniversity of St Andrews
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Extract

In the sixteenth century Scotland was in close conscious relation with the continent. In international politics she had through the dynastic connections of her royal house acquired a crucial importance, and in ecclesiastical, academic, and literary spheres that relationship had never before and perhaps has never since been quite so intimate or so fully developed. The end of the Auld Alliance in 1560 did not weaken although it may have changed these ties. Indeed they were in many ways strengthened. In ever increasing numbers the sons of Scottish nobility went abroad in the furtherance of their general education and experience of the world. Almost every university in Europe was at some time visited by Scottish scholars and almost every educated Scot who in this century achieved distinction in religion, education or politics had spent some time at one or more of the great centres of learning. Nor was this traffic one way. Scotland had its modest share of travellers from overseas in the early days of the grand tour, and although only a few itineraries have so far come to light there is ample evidence in surviving alba amicorum and in the university rector’s books that a visit to the northern kingdom and an extended period of residence at one of its universities was unexceptional.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 14: Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History , 1977 , pp. 251 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1977

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to several colleagues for help in the preparation of this paper, in particular to Dr J. S. Alexander and Dr S. W. Gilley.

References

2 McCrie, [T.], [Life of Andrew] Melville (Edinburgh 1856) pp 467-71Google Scholar, provides a list of foreign students at Scottish universities which could now be considerably enlarged. See also Cameron, [J. K.], Letters of [John] Johnston [c. 1563-1611] and [Robert] Howie [c. 1363-1645] (Edinburgh 1963) pp xiii–xv Google Scholar; Sieber, [M.], ‘Die Universität Basel [im 16 Jahrhundert und ihre englischen Besucher]’ Basler Zeitschrift, 55 (Basel 1956) pp 75–112 Google Scholar.

3 Durkan, [J.], ‘The Beginnings of Humanism [in Scotland]’, IR 4 (1953) p 14 Google Scholar; Dunlop, [A. I.], Acta [Facultatis Artium Universitatis Sanctiandree] (Edinburgh 1964) p lv Google Scholar.

4 See further Herkless, J. and Hannay, R. K., The Archbishops of St. Andrews, 3 and 4 (Edinburgh 1910 and 1913)Google Scholar.

5 Durkan, ‘Beginnings of Humanism’ p 14; Dunlop, Acta, p lxii.

6 Durkan, ‘Beginnings of Humanism’, pp 16-17; Horn, [D.] ‘The Origins [of the University of Edinburgh’], University of Edinburgh Journal, 22 (Edinburgh 1965-6) pp 213-25Google Scholar, 297-312.

7 IR 4 pp 5-23; ‘Education [in the Century of the Reformation]’, IR 10 (1959) pp 67-90; ‘The Cultural Background [in Sixteenth Century Scotland]’ IR 10, pp 382-439.

8 Durkan ‘Beginnings of Humanism’, p 17.

9 Cameron, [J. K.], [The First] Book of Discipline (Edinburgh 1972) pp 54–61, 129-55Google Scholar.

10 Donaldson, G., The Scottish Reformation (Cambridge 1960) pp 95-6Google Scholar.

11 Durkan, ‘Education’ p 75. See also Grant, J., History of the burgh schools of Scotland (Glasgow 1876) pp 1–75 Google Scholar; Edgar, J., History of Early Scottish Education (Edinburgh 1893) pp 107-24Google Scholar.

12 Cameron, Book of Discipline, p 131; Bourchenin, [P. D.] [Etude sur les]Académies protestantes [en France au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle] (Paris 1882)Google Scholar; Meylan, [H.], D’Erasme à Theodore de beze (Geneva 1976) pp 191-9Google Scholar.

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14 For details see Bourchenin, Académies protestantes; Meylan, D’Erasme à Theodore de Bèze, pp 191-9.

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16 Cameron, Book of Discipline, pp 137-43.

17 Dunlop, Acta pp lxviii, clviii.

18 Hannay, R.K., The Statutes of the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Theology at the period of the Reformation (St Andrews 1910) pp 56–66 Google Scholar, 81-5.

19 A new and authoritative biography of George Buchanan by professor I. D. McFarlane is in the press. I am grateful to professor McFarlane for permitting me to read his manuscript.

20 Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 2 (Edinburgh 1814) p 544.

21 Vernacular Writings of George Buchanan, ed Brown, P. H., Scottish Text Society, 26 (Edinburgh 1892) pp 1–17 Google Scholar; Cant, [R. G.], [The University of] St. Andrews (new ed Edinburgh 1970) pp 48-9Google Scholar.

22 See for example the regulated periods in the education course for which financial support was to be given. Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland (Edinburgh 1839) pp 214-15.

23 McCrie, Melville, caps 2, 4.

24 Dr James Kirk has written a detailed account of Melville’s tenure of the principalship of the university of Glasgow for a forthcoming history of that university of which Dr Durkan is a co-author. I am grateful to Dr Kirk for allowing me to read his section of this work in manuscript.

25 Cant, St. Andrews, pp 50-8.

26 Henderson, [G. D.], [The Founding of] Marischal College [Aberdeen] (Aberdeen 1947) p 11–15 Google Scholar.

27 Horn, ‘The Origins’ pp 302-8.

28 Henderson, Marischal College, pp 21, 56-62.

29 Sec further Howell, W.S., Logic and Rhetoric in England 1500-1700 (New York 1961) pp 170-89Google Scholar.

30 Cant, St. Andrews, pp 54-5.

31 Evidence . . . taken and received by the commissioners . . . for visiting the Universities of Scotland, 3, St. Andrews (London 1837) p 184.

32 See the incomplete lists given by McCrie, Melville, pp 467-9.

33 Cameron, Letters of Johnston and Howie, p lix.

34 Bourchenin, Académies Protestantes; Meylan, D’Erasme à Theodore de Bèze, pp 191-9; Borgeaud, C., L’Académie de Calvin 1559-1798 (Geneva 1900)Google Scholar; Dibon, P. A. G., L’enseignement philosophique dansles universités néerlandaises a l’époque pré-cartésienne (1575-1650) (Leiden 1954)Google Scholar.

35 Horn, ‘The Origins’ p 297.

36 Cant, R. G., ‘Scottish Paper Universities’, The Scots Magazine (Dundee September-October 1945) pp 11–14 Google Scholar; Henderson, Marischal College, pp 32-3.

37 Ibid p 13.

38 Ibid p 4.

39 DNB 49. pp 171-3; [Select Works of Robert] Rollock, [ed Gunn, W. G.], The Wodrow Society (Edinburgh 1849) 1, pp lix–lxxxvii Google Scholar.

40 DNB 19, pp 402-4.

41 Rollock, 1, p 10. See also Cameron, Letters of Johnston and Howie, pp 331-4.

42 Rollock, 1, p 318.

43 Ibid 1, p 331.

44 Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R., A Greek-English Lexicon (new, ninth, ed Oxford 1966) p 1941 Google Scholar.

45 Rollock, 1, pp 316-17.

46 MacMillan, D., The Aberdeen Doctors (London 1909) pp 227-34Google Scholar

47 Irenicum amatoribus veritatis et pacis in ecclesia Scoticano (Aberdeen 1629). The first book was translated and edited by E. G. Selwyn (Cambridge 1923).

48 Instructiones Historico-Theologicae de Doctrina Christiana (Amsterdam 1645 and Geneva 1680); this work was republished as the second volume of his Opera omnia (Amsterdam 1702). References are to this edition.

49 Theohgiae moralis libri decem was published in the first volume of Forbes’s Opera omnia in 1703.

50 Ibid 2, pp 625-7.

51 Ibid 2, p 158.

52 Ibid 2, pp 313-24.

53 Ibid 2, pp 161-205.

54 Ibid 1, Theologia Moralis, cap 13, pp 26-9.

55 Ibid cap 16, p 38.

56 Ibid pp 531-619.

57 In his discussion of clerical celibacy, he quotes pp 580-92, from his lines on Hilary of Poitiers and approves of the contemporary description of Mantuanus as insignis theologus et poeta vere pius.

58 DNB 6, pp 98-9; Walker, J., The Theology and Theologians of Scotland (Edinburgh 1872) pp 3–5 Google Scholar; Wodrow, [R.], Collections [upon the lives of the Reformers], Maitland Club (Glasgow 1845) 2, pt 1 Google Scholar.

59 In Epistola Pauli Apostoli ad Ephesios (London 1652). An edition was also printed at Geneva in 1661. A short vita by A. Rivet is prefixed to both editions.

60 Hill, G., Lectures in Divinity (Edinburgh 1825) 1 pp 439, 443Google Scholar; see further Cameron, J. K., ‘The Church of Scotland in the age of reason’, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century 18 (Geneva 1967) pp 1939-51Google Scholar at p 1951.

61 Bradner, [L.], Musae [Anglicanae] (London 1940) p 19 Google Scholar.

62 See for example the chronological list of publications of Anglo-Latin poetry given by Bradner, Musae, pp 346-60; Musa Latina Aberdonensis, New Spalding Club, 1, 2, ed Geddes, W. D. (Aberdeen 1892, 1895) 3 Google Scholar, ed W. K. Leask (1910); Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum huius aevi illustrium, ed Johnston, A., 2 vols (Amsterdam 1637)Google Scholar.

63 Caps 5 and 6, pp 123-200, are devoted to Scottish neo-Latin poets.

64 On pp 155-7.

65 These are contained in the Edinburgh University Library MS, Melvini Epistolae.

66 See further, Cameron, Letters of Johnston and Howie.

67 p 2; see also Cameron, Letters of Johnston and Howie, p 166.

68 p 2; Cameron, Letters of Johnston and Howie, p 167.

69 p A3v

70 Cameron, Letters of Johnston and Howie, pp 246-8.

71 Ibid, pp lxxii, 23 5-7.

72 Ibid pp lxiii, lxxv, 227-8, 230-1, 244; Musa Latina Aberdonensis, 3, pp 147-58.

73 Musa Latina Aberdonetisis, 3, pp 102-37.

74 Cameron, J. K., ‘A St. Andrews Manuscript of Poems by John Johnston (c. 1565-1611)’, Aberdeen University Review, 39 (Aberdeen 1962) pp 230-2Google Scholar.

75 Thomson, H.J., Prudentius (Cambridge, Mass., 1949) 1, p viii Google Scholar.

76 Musa Latina Aberdonensis, 3, p 125.

77 Cameron, Letters of Johnston and Howie, pp lxxv, 239-61; Bradner, Musae, pp 156-7.

78 Vol 1, pp 209-18; see also Wodrow, Collections, 2 pt 1, pp 251-2, and appendix 6 pp vi-xvii.

79 Ibid p 257.

80 See for example Brown, P.H., George Buchanan (Edinburgh 1890) pp 3–5 Google Scholar, and Bradner, Musae, p 123.

81 The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, ed Laing, David (Edinburgh 1879) pp xxxix–li Google Scholar.

82 DNB 14, pp 125-7; Roger, [C.], [Three Scottish] Reformers (London 1874) pp 31–53 Google Scholar; Ane dialog is printed on pp 53-80.

83 Die Matrikel der Universität Basel, ed Wackernagel, H. G. (Basel 1956) 2, pp 236-7Google Scholar; Sieber, ‘Die Universität Basel’, pp 102, 110.

84 DNB 5, p 294.

85 Roger, Reformers, pp 51-2.

86 Spitz, L. W., The Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists (Cambridge, Mass., 1963) p 204 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.