Religious Dissent And “Godly Discipline” At St. Andrews In 1560 And 1574

By Kirk R. MacGregor

[Kirk R. MacGregor teaches Christian History and Thought at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa]

St. Andrews during the Reformation era was a lively burgh with substantial maritime trade and a population between twenty-five hundred and three thousand people. It constituted the seat of both a university bearing its name and the metropolitan see of Scotland, which latter position gave the city jurisdiction over a number of outlying villages. The great transformation of St. Andrews from the hub of Scotland’s Catholic primate to her foremost Reformed community happened very quickly as the citizens literally awoke on Sunday June 11, 1559, in a town full of Catholic churches and went to bed that night with a Protestant burgh and a Reformed parish church. A defiant John Knox began “Reformation Day” by preaching on Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15–19) in the parish church of Holy Trinity, and there followed the forcible removal of all the “idols” and images from the burgh’s cathedral churches and the destruction of the two houses of friars, the Dominicans and Observant Franciscans.[1] Directed by Knox, the Scottish Parliament of 1560 proceeded with the work of reformation by formally breaking national ties to the Roman Church. It ended the rule of the Pope, outlawed the Mass and Catholic baptism, repealed all statutes against heretics, and forbade “idolatrie and superstition in the Kirk of God,” especially transubstantiation, salvation by works, pilgrimages, and prayers to saints, with death as the prescribed penalty for third-time offenders.[2] When the Scots Confession was drawn up by the “Six Johns” in 1560, Knox ensured that it recognized “ecclesiastical discipline, uprightly ministered as God’s word prescribes” as one of the three “notes, signs, and assured tokens” whereby the true church might be “known from that horrible harlot,” the church of Rome.[3] Following the example of Calvin, Knox insisted that church discipline was to be administered by a special tribunal or morals court called the Kirk Session, the Scottish equivalent of the Genevan consistory, made up of all the salaried pastors of the city and twelve elected lay elders.

Religious dissent was the foremost disciplinary concern of the St. Andrews Kirk Session in the years 1560 and 1574, comprising seventy-five of its 106 total combined cases (71 percent).[4] The Session’s concentration on dissent in these two years is quite stunning in light of its focus on matters of sexual morality during the intervening years, amounting to 57 percent of its cases from 1561 through 1573 (244 of the 428 total combined cases) for an average of nineteen per year, coupled with its scarce 6 percent (26 of 428 total), or an average of two per year, of religious dissent cases over the same interval. However, this is not to say that in 1574 the Session charged the citizens of St. Andrews with defying the Kirk in the same manner as they had in 1560, nor that the populace proved any more rebellious in 1574 than in the years 1561 through 1573. Rather, the types of dissent punished in 1560 and 1574 varied greatly in character as a direct result of the differing historical climates and progressive life stages in the development of the St. Andrews Reformed community during these two years. At its infancy in 1560, the Kirk Session was primarily concerned with rooting out the long-established set of beliefs and behaviors essential to Catholic religiosity and replacing them with a new set representative of the Reformed faith. Accordingly the first half of this study will argue that the Kirk Session successfully mediated the basic transition from medieval Catholicism to Calvinism in 1560 by procuring essential changes in doctrine and mentalité among the populace through rigid “godly discipline.”

By 1574, conversely, the overwhelming majority of the city’s citizens manifested the earmarks of Reformed confessional identity, leading the Kirk Session to demand from them a much greater, and perhaps somewhat unrealistic, distancing from all folk religious practices (many of which had been firmly entrenched in Scottish national identity for over a millennium) associated in the minds of Calvin and Knox with “popery.” In addition, three external factors coalesced in 1574 to give the Kirk Session the impression that such a crackdown on ostensibly Catholic practices was not merely important but both necessary and feasible: the close of the 1567–1572 civil war, the death of Knox in 1572, and the ascendancy of Regent Morton during the same year. Of these circumstances, Knox’s death was clearly the element that created the feeling of necessity for squelching all traditional practices associated with the old religion, as the passing of their courageous and uncompromising leader immediately provoked the Session’s fear that the laity would backslide in their faith and even revert to their former Catholic identity. Trying to remove from popular opinion the possibility of Catholic reemergence as well as any perception of disciplinary laxity from the unflinching oversight of Knox, the Kirk, not surprisingly, shifted the pendulum of spiritual admonition to its extreme. However, the second half of this study will contend that, despite taking equally drastic measures in 1574 as in 1560, the Session was unable to eradicate folk religious practices, such as the celebration of Christmas, which persisted among the St. Andrews laity despite the fact that the Reformers vehemently associated these practices with Catholicism. As a result, the Session was forced to rethink its strategy along more practical lines and to adopt a policy of integrating these practices into the fabric of Reformed life rather than insisting on their eradication.

I. Cases of Religious Dissent in 1560

1. Recantations From Catholicism

A first step in eliminating Catholic beliefs and replacing them with behaviors reflective of the Reformed attitude was the recantation of Catholic clergy. The Kirk Session ensured that their denials were laden with virulent polemic against the old church in general and the Pope and Mass in particular.[5] On February 1, the Kirk Session compelled John Wilson, the former canon of Holyrood Abbey, to “utterlie renunce, refuse and forsaik. .. that lecherouss swyne the Byschop of Rome. .. called the Pape.” The specific Catholic elements Wilson was forced to condemn included the Mass, branded by St. Andrews as the “maist abhominable idolatrie, contrarious and repugnant” to Christ’s Passion and death; the veneration of saints; purgatory; and the reverence of idols and images. Finally, Wilson vowed to uphold the entire corpus of the Old and New Testaments as the “onelie rewle to atteyne to salvation” and to extinguish the authority of “the Antichriste of Romme,” namely the Pope.[6] Two days later, eighteen former priests and nine lay Catholics were summoned before the Kirk Session to affirm the Reformed doctrine and administration of the sacraments as consistent with God’s Word and to renounce all idolatry, superstition, the Mass, the Pope, and all Roman traditions. Upon their compliance, reportedly “of there awin fre motyve,” all twenty-seven were admitted as full members of the congregation.[7]

Priests, laity, and rulers alike who defended Catholic practices after the installation of John Knox in 1559 met with harsh opposition from St. Andrews. On March 7,1560, Alexander Balfour, vicar of Kilmany, the laymen Andro Watsone and Thomas Smyth, and the magistrate Joannes Lawmonth were convicted by the Session of sinning “in thocht, word, and deed, spetialie in blasphemows words. .. [in] defenss. .. of the Paip or Bischop of Romme, that inimye to Christe.” All four were sentenced to the repentance stool the following Sunday to beg forgiveness from the entire congregation.[8] The repentance stool, preserved today in the Town Church, was a high, four-legged, backless chair somewhat like a modern bar stool shrewdly constructed to topple over if the sinner failed to sit completely upright, thus making public repentance on the stool a particularly humiliating and nerve-racking shaming technique.[9] That Law-month was assigned the same punishment as the priest and two laymen illustrates that the Kirk took no account of rank in its administration of discipline.[10] Like the private retraction of John Wilson, the public profession of Balfour, Watsone, Smyth, and Lawmonth designated the Pope as “that odiouse beast.. . quhai hais worted and ruted up the Lordes vyneyard” and denounced “espetiall the mess,” worshiping of saints, and purgatory. In contrast to Catholics who acknowledged papal authority, the penitent vowed to “onlie accept and repute Jesus Christe. .. the Redemar of us and all mankynde from syn, hell, death, and damnatioun, to be onlie the hiead, rewlar and guidar of his Kirk.”[11] The Reformed Kirk’s distinction between Catholics, who served the Pope as King of the Church and thus inhabited the Antichrist’s kingdom, and Calvinists, the citizens of the kingdom of God who worshiped Christ as the Church’s only Lord, was a powerful theological tool in effecting permanent doctrinal change among new converts and repentant offenders.

Unquestionably the most sensational recantation was that of Friar Gresone, the notorious enemy of the Reformation. He was Prior of the Predicant Friars at Aberdeen in 1516, and was declared “one of the men of learning and piety who adorned the early years of the University of that city”.[12] In 1517 he became Prior of the St. Andrews convent, a position that he occupied for at least thirty years.[13] Foxe lists him among the persecutors of Patrick Hamilton, the proto-martyr of the Scottish Reformation, and also names him in the concilium malignantium convened against Walter Mille, the last Protestant martyr in Scotland.[14] Gresone must therefore have been an old man when he appeared before the Kirk Session on March 18, 1560. Since he was perceived as a continuing threat, Gresone was commanded by the Kirk to accept publicly the new religion.[15] The Session dragged him in front of the entire congregation three days later to repent of his sin, make a positive confession of Reformed faith, and issue seven separate and lengthy disavowals of Catholic theology and practice. In light of the Kirk’s hostility to Catholicism and its backing by the local government, Gresone chose to renounce his former convictions and confessed that “in time bypast, I haif maynteynet and defendet diverse kyndes of superstitioun and idolatrie. .. and hais remanet ower lang at the opinioun and defens of sick thinges.” Upon repenting “fra the bodowme of my hart,” he promised to “conform my lyfe to the Word and doctryne of the aeternall God” as taught by the “Kirk and Congregation of God,” which is “sufficientlie instructit to inchew syn, dead, and hell, and quhow they may cum to everlesting lyfe.”[16]

Gresone’s first recantation disclaimed the Pope as head of the Church and all his traditions as “makand dirogatioun to Goddis lawes.” Second, he renounced the Mass and purgatory as blasphemous human inventions contrary to the salvific work of Christ. Because the Reformed doctrine of limited atonement maintained that Jesus’ redemptive work was sufficiently powerful to satisfy for the sins of all humanity but was constrained by God’s intention to apply it only to the elect, Gresone coined the strange word “omnisufficient” to describe the scope of the crucifixion.[17] Third, he granted that “na graven image suld be maid and worschippet in the Kirk of God” and indicted such worship as “verray idolatrie” and explicit violation of the Decalogue. Fourth, he rejected prayers to departed saints as unscriptural but affirmed that prayers should be addressed to Christ, the “Sanct of all sanctis” and our only Mediator and Advocate who perpetually intercedes to the Father in behalf of the faithful. Fifth, while recognizing the gift of chastity as defined by Paul, the former convent prior made an about-face by endorsing the legality of marriage for all people, especially pastors and ex-nuns. Sixth, he rejected all transubstantiation in the “body and blude of our Salviour Christe Jesu.”[18] Paradoxically, while making the public confession required by the Kirk Session for admission into the visible community of faith, Gresone finally denied that the Roman functional equivalent, namely auricular confession,[19] was a necessary component of salvation. Regardless of its sincerity, Gresone’s confession of faith was a major psychological victory for the new Calvinist regime.[20]

The majority of readers and almost half of the Reformed clergy in St. Andrews were comprised of ex-Catholic priests, whose conversion occurred in 1560 or shortly later.[21] The Kirk Session took great pains to ensure the orthodoxy of pastoral candidates, requiring special vows, a detailed renunciation of Roman traditions, and a public display of forgiveness before the entire congregation for their past involvement with “idolatrie and superstitiones.”[22] It is highly probable that ex-priests Walter Bowsy and Joannes Toddrick, called before the Session on February 14, were new candidates for the Reformed clergy. Both had staffed the town church of Holy Trinity prior to “Reformation Day,” and each swore pledges, not demanded of any other priest or layperson, to “assist in word and wark, with unfenyiet mynde, this congregation efter our powar” and never to engage in Catholic rituals “for profict nor feer.”[23] These pledges “beyne sweir in adjuning” the former priests “to Christes Congregatioun.” Like Wilson, Bowsy and Toddrick dubbed the Pope as the Antichrist and suppressor of God’s glory, but they proceeded to label as satanic the Mass, purgatory, and prayers in Latin. In addition, they rejected all ceremonies used in the Papistry, including the “hallowing of candellis, watter, salt, and bread,” as human inventions designed to “bind and thrall mennis consciences.” Finally, they were ordered to beg forgiveness from the entire congregation on February 17 for “grievouslie offendet” in the aforementioned rituals. That Bowsy and Toddrick were potential clergy is substantiated by the fact that they asked mercy only from “God and his holy congregation,” while other priests charged with the same violations consistently entreated “God, his ministeris of his Kirk, and his said congregation.”[24]

The importance of such priestly recantations should not be overlooked. Contra the general pattern observed by Michael Graham that the weak Scottish Kirk solely dealt with explicit and undisputed sins like illicit sexuality between 1560 and 1590 and, only after strengthening itself by winning local acceptance, introduced the rest of the disciplinary program in the last decade of the sixteenth century, St. Andrews swiftly and harshly punished religious dissent in a very effective manner in the spring of 1560.[25] Even more significantly these actions were taken before the meeting of the “Reformation Parliament” and the official break with Rome that summer, and thus constituted one element of a local reformation that predated its national counterpart.[26] The twenty-three cases of Roman priests renouncing Catholicism had a tremendous psychological and sociological impact on both priests and community. Many of these clergy preached and publicly administered the sacraments, and in the eyes of the faithful, they possessed a special relationship with God by virtue of their office. Now in front of all their former spiritual charges, they were forced to declare in humiliating and somewhat degrading fashion that they had been deluded and that their past actions were utterly fraudulent.[27] It is difficult to exaggerate the fear and anxiety such recantations must have evoked among the laity, who found themselves in spiritual jeopardy. While lay Catholics were usually spared the public recantation imposed upon Catholic clergy, even they feared humiliation.[28] For example, Alexander Dempstertoun, Johne Mortoun, Patrick Ramsay, and James Thomsone chose to” presentlie renunceis, and from thence furth sall utterlie renounce. .. the Pape, his authority, power and jurisdiction” before the Session in February to avoid the repentance stool the following Sunday.[29] In light of impending theological danger and disciplinary torment, the St. Andrews community found itself virtually powerless but to turn to the Reformed Kirk for its religious security.

2. Instances Of Blasphemy

A handful of ardent Catholic supporters, however, strove vainly against the new Calvinist order, where attacks on the sacraments and outrage against John Knox constituted the two dominant forms of protest. On April 26, Agnes Macke was convicted by the Session of “murmurand against Gods Word” and opposing “the Word and doctryne now teachet in this cietie” on the eyewitness testimony of Irische Jocke and Agnes Symsone. Moreover, Macke had vehemently objected to the replacement of the Mass, which she called “communioun,” with the Lord’s Supper, and she had asserted in the presence of elder Johne Dowglass and future city minister Robert Hamilton that “God lat them [the Reformed church leadership] never haif mayr part of the joy of Heaven, then they leit hir haif of the communioun.”[30] That same day, the Session accused Margaret Murdow of blasphemous sayings against the Eucharist in the open fish market. This claim was verified by two witnesses appearing respectively on Thursday, May 2, and Saturday, May 4, and reporting that Murdow had jeered, “Ye gif your supper quhome to ye pleass: I traist to God ye salbe fayne to steale fra that supper and dennar, or this day tolmonth.” Both Macke and Murdow were punished quite severely by the Kirk, which first admonished them “to absteyne in tyme cuming fur sic blasphemous saying is, under paynes of cursing” and then delivered them to the town magistrates “for forthir correctioun civilie.”[31]

The same fate befell Walter Adie, who on April 28 had asked a deacon passing out Eucharistic tokens, “Will ye give me ane techet to be served the Divellis dirt? I sall by ane poynt of wyne and ane laif, and I sall haif als gude ane sacrament as the best of them all sall haif.”[32] On May 2, Johne Law was charged with having proclaimed: “The Divell knok owt Johne Knox barnes, for, quhen he wald se him hanget, he wald gett his sacrament.. .. God give Knox be hanget.” Not surprisingly, he was summarily excommunicated by the Session and “directit to the bal-lies and civile magistrates.”[33] Williame Pettilok threatened on May 9 that if the Devil would not burn up the Kirk with Knox inside keeping the gate, then he would be more than happy to oblige. After his words were reported to St. Andrews by Thomas Martynes, Pettilok was immediately summoned before the Kirk Session. When Pettilok arrived, he not only confirmed his statement but also exclaimed, “The Divell cayre [rake up] the kyrk!”[34] In the face of such blatant defiance, the Session excommunicated Pettilok, immediately handed him over to the town council, and advised the magistrates that he should be put to death.[35]

Despite its harsh veneer, the Kirk Session tended to be more lenient regarding cases of religious confusion and ignorance, even when heretical; furthermore, they refused to deliver anyone to the civil authorities unless accusations were confirmed by two or three witnesses in accordance with the mandates of Scripture and medieval jurisprudence. A classic example of the former (i.e., sincere misunderstanding) is Andro Howburne, who on July 16 was accused of blasphemy against both the Lord’s Supper and the Trinity. Unlike Walter Adie, Howburne genuinely believed that he, like the ministers, had the power to hallow a loaf of bread and a pint of wine and thus perform the Eucharist, yielding “als gude ane sacrament as thai mak.. . mening the ministeris.” His doctrinal naïveté gave rise to “vayn questiones” about the origin of the Trinitarian Persons: “Quhidder come the Fathir frome the Sone? or the Sone fra the Father? and quharefra come the Haly Gaist?” After these statements were verified by three witnesses, namely George Wilsone, the cutler Thomas Broun, and the maltman Dauid Watsone, the minister Cristofer Gudman followed the advice of the elders and sharply admonished Howburne to desist from making heretical remarks “under the payne of excommunicatioun, reservand forthir punischement to the civile sworde.”[36] Because Howburne’s comments stemmed from ignorance, he was released with a warning and exhorted to attend further sermons in hopes of remedying his knowledge deficiency, thus being spared both excommunication and death.

The latter circumstance (i.e., lack of corroboration by witnesses) is exemplified by the case of Elene Thomsone. On May 4, she was accused by the Kirk of four serious offenses: showing contempt of God’s Word; attending neither Sunday sermons nor Wednesday prayer meetings; speaking evil of Reformed pastors, especially Knox; and blaspheming the sacraments.[37] It is evident from the aforementioned cases that conviction on any one of the first, third, or fourth charges would have spelled civil punishment for Thomsone. However, when no witnesses came forward to substantiate these allegations, Thomsone was merely “fraternalie corrected” by St. Andrews and released. Such an outcome reveals the Session’s strict adherence to medieval principles of justice with biblical roots, notwithstanding the gravity of purported transgressions: “A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained” (Deut 19:15 NRSV; cf. Matt 18:16).[38] Moreover, this case illustrates that all residents of St. Andrews, regardless of whether they desired to be members of the Reformed Kirk or not, were subject to church discipline from the inception of the Session.[39] While Calvinist leaders in both the Dutch Republic and early modern Germany argued that only true believers should be subject to ecclesiastical discipline, John Knox vehemently opposed this view and instead embraced Calvin’s position that the Christian community comprised both sinners and saved and was thus obligated to examine and judge all who fell from or failed to submit to doctrinal purity.[40]

II. Assessment And Evaluation Of Kirk Session Activity In 1560

In sum, the St. Andrews Kirk Session heard forty-five cases of religious dissension in 1560, comprising a remarkable 85 percent of the fifty-three suits brought before the morals court that year. Such dissension cases included thirty-eight recantations from Catholicism (84 percent) and seven instances of blasphemy (16 percent). Among those constrained to deny the old religion were twenty-three former priests (60 percent), fourteen laymen (37 percent), and one magistrate (3 percent). While only 26 percent of ex-clergy (six of twenty-three) were consigned to the repentance stool, all were forced to abdicate any former vows or future pledges they might make to uphold the Catholic faith. Likewise, all lay Catholics were required to denounce the Pope and the Mass, but only 14 percent (two of fourteen) appeared before the congregation.[41] Although these statistics indicate that the old priests were especially targeted by the Kirk, they also display the primitive Session’s goal of eradicating Catholic beliefs among the populace. Despite Geoffrey Parker’s inference that lay Catholics were not subject to the Session until 1567, the registers of 1560 show that twenty of the forty-five dissension cases (44 percent) involved Catholic citizens of St. Andrews.[42] Some of these citizens objected quite strongly to the Reformed doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, which asserted Christ’s spiritual presence and nourishment by faith in the hearts of the participants rather than his physical presence in the bread and wine, as evidenced by the fact that four of the seven blasphemy cases (57 percent) centered around the Eucharist.[43] Moreover, these Catholic laity were angered both that the single mystical moment signaled by the elevation of the Host and the ringing of the bell had been eliminated in favor of equal treatment for all parts of the Communion service, and that serving of one kind by the priest at the rail had been replaced by distribution of both kinds by minister and layman alike at the communion table.[44]

Four of these cases were remanded to the town council, which reveals the close affiliation between the Kirk Session and the local government from the dawn of reformation in St. Andrews. In fact, the elders and deacons comprising the Session were elected by the council, free burgesses, and university regents, and these groups ensured that the eldership constituted a civic commission that reflected their interests.[45] Since the deacons were responsible for executing the cumbersome duties of alms collection and distribution, they were usually of lower status than the elders. While it was not unusual for an urban craftsman or rural tenant to be appointed to the diaconate, he would have almost no chance of becoming an elder. Hence, the eldership was a closed, oligarchic corporation that functioned in concert with the civil government.[46] For example, five of the twelve elders chosen in 1560 were members of the town council, including magistrate Alan Lawmonth, burgh clerks John Motto and Dauid Wolwod, and bailies Thomas Balfour and William Cok. Moreover, the presence of the bailies made the decisions of the Session immediately enforceable in both the secular and ecclesiastical courts.[47] Such solidarity between ecclesiastical and civil authorities made it extremely difficult to sustain dissent or organize opposition to the Reformed church. Therefore, although the blasphemy cases contained plenty of offensive and abusive talk expressing dissatisfaction with the Kirk, there could be no serious attempt to overturn the Kirk.[48] In that sense, the Session correctly boasted that its discipline had been “used and resavit wythowtyn contempt or ony plane contradiccione of ony person.”[49]

The evidence indicates that the disciplinary actions of the Kirk Session in 1560 were extremely successful in bringing about essential doctrinal and behavioral changes from medieval Catholicism to Calvinism. In 1561, the number of religious dissenters summoned by St. Andrews dwindled down to an astonishingly low two, compared with forty-five the previous year, and 1562 saw no cases of dissent at all.[50] Concerning the Session’s efficacy in sparking religious reform among the populace, Jane Dawson comments:

In St. Andrews there was no gradual change or series of compromises, but a swift transition from one style of religion to another.. .. “Reformation” was something [the people of St. Andrews] experienced directly.. .. They were in little doubt that the new ways were intended to be very different from the old ones.[51]

It is interesting to note that even the two cases in 1561 were dealings with recalcitrant priests rather than the laity. Knowing that it had already established itself as a force the previous year, the Session dealt much more harshly with these offenders by banishing them from society.[52] For example, despite the fact that John Kipper, “sumtym knycht of the Papis kyrk,” offered an extensive renunciation at St. Andrews on June 21, 1561, of his “saying of mes and usand supersticion and idolatrie,” as such abominations opposed “the institucion of Crist” and failed to acknowledge “his precious blud sched for me and mankynd,” the Session still sentenced him to imprisonment in “the castell of Sanctandrois” for “contempsione and blasphemyng of Cristis religion.”[53]

Other priests who were regarded as troublemakers were ejected from the burgh, which served the function of a “legal death” sentence.[54] A case in point is the infamous Thomas Methven, who refused to heed the summons of the Kirk Session to recant of his popery and give a confession of Reformed faith on August 5, 1561.[55] Instead, he snidely remarked to the local Superintendent in the tenor of 1 Cor 1:12 that “he was nether ane Papist nor ane Calwynist, nor of Paul nor of Apollo, bot Jesus Cristis man,” and hence the Kirk had neither jurisdiction nor authority over him.[56] After again declining to appear before the Session two days later, this time claiming he had greater “knawlege and understanding, bayth in the civil law and in the Scriptur” than any of the elders or deacons, Methven was excommunicated and exiled from the city.[57] Not satisfied with simply getting rid of Methven, the infuriated Kirk sent letters after him on August 21 and 25 to dog his trail.[58]

The punishment exacted by the 1560 Session was so effective that it extirpated significant religious dissent for over a decade, so that dissent comprised just twenty-six of the 428 total cases (6 percent) encountered by the Kirk between 1561 and 1573, for an average of two per year.[59] For this reason, Dawson contends that in its exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, “the Reformed church of St. Andrews gave Scotland its greatest lead and inspiration,” as “its existence indicated a church that was genuinely settled and established.”[60] By virtue of such conformity to Calvinist faith and practice throughout the city, the Kirk Session confidently declared on May 31, 1564:

Seing it hes pleased the gudnes of the Eternall, our God, of his meir mercy, to deliver and reduce us furth of the bondage and yok of Antechrist, to the lycht of the Ewangell of Jesus Crist be plenteows prechyng of the same; so that the face of ane perfyt reformed kyrk has beyn seyn wythin this cite be the space of fyve yearis.[61]

Therefore, we may safely conclude that defending Reformed doctrine and ensuring continuity of belief within St. Andrews was successfully achieved in large part by the severe negative sanctions of the Kirk Session.[62]

III. Historical Background Of The Agenda Of The 1574 Kirk Session

In the 1561 First Book of Discipline composed by Knox, several medieval Catholic practices were denounced as human inventions imposed by the papacy without any scriptural basis, including “Christmasse.”[63] To ensure that such abominations would be abolished from Scotland, Knox demanded that all who maintained and taught them “ought not to escape the punishment of the civill Magistrate.”[64] Moreover, Knox was convinced that if these practices were not suppressed, then God’s wrath would inescapably reign over the nation, not only upon” the blind and obstinate idolater, but also the negligent sufferers” sincethey chose not to employ the power God had given them to abolish such idolatry.[65] The Book also prescribed that the members of the congregation should attend both the morning services and the catechizing on Sunday afternoons.[66] It is difficult to overestimate the long-term effect of weekly catechizing, as the Reformers were quite cognizant of the fact that renewal could only be achieved if the young were inculcated with a new way of approaching religion.[67] In addition, the University of St. Andrews played an instrumental role in local reform by training the next generation of Reformed ministers, and members of the faculty preached the weekday sermons at Holy Trinity and thus provided the laity “with a series of very highly qualified and renowned preachers.”[68] Whether the Kirk ultimately sparked inner spiritual transformation on a wide scale cannot be determined with certainty, but it eventually remolded the religious perception of the populace.[69] By 1570, the citizens of St. Andrews could purportedly recite the Apostles’ Creed, the Decalogue, and the Lord’s Prayer, and remarkably, give a personal account of their faith.[70] As the Kirk gradually exerted its dominance over increasingly detailed theological matters beyond simply the basics of Reformed doctrine, it attempted to realize the extraordinarily high standard of “perfyt reformed kyrk” which it had set.

Matters of church and state coalesced from 1572 to 1573 to facilitate the Session’s thoroughgoing attempt to expunge all perceived impious behavior. The death of Knox in 1572 incited widespread fear among the pastors and elders that the disciplinary gains empowered by his guidance would be quickly lost. Moreover, due to the identity that naturally forms between a movement and its authoritative leader, the Session was alarmed about the prospect that the death of Knox might spell in the popular mind the incapacity of the Reformed faith to meet spiritual needs and consequently trigger a reversion to Catholicism. In order simultaneously to forestall spiritual regression and to emphasize that the strength of the Reformed worldview lay not in an authoritative leader but in its biblical fidelity and theological consistency, the Session was prepared to remove all vestiges of its ideological predecessor through moral suasion. The political situation in St. Andrews was ripe for such an occurrence, as the 1567–1572 revolution sparked by Catholic queen Mary Stuart’s alleged murder of her ex-husband Darnley remarriage to her lover Lord Bothwell, and installation of her infant son James as king of Scotland had just been brought to an end.[71] Mary’s abdication to England in 1568 coupled with the Earl of Morton’s ascendancy to the Scottish regency in 1572 via English military aid anticipated higher governmental backing for the Kirk Session’s program of inducing the laity to demonstrate more godly zeal.[72] In fact, the 1573 General Assembly at Edinburgh suspected that St. Andrews was lagging behind other Scottish kirks in the program of disciplinary augmentation, which it saw necessary for responding effectively to Knox’s death, and it pressured minister Robert Hamilton and the town elders to enforce higher standards.[73] Hence, these religious and political factors paved the way for the Kirk’s attempt to stamp out folk religious practices associated with Catholicism, especially the observance of Christmas, in 1574.

IV. Cases Of Religious Dissent In 1574

1. Celebration Of Christmas

Immediately after the turn of the new year, the Kirk Session charged twenty-six people, all male and most of them craftsmen, with the superstition of keeping Christmas, or “Zwil-day,” holy.[74] On January 7, cutler Waltir Lathangye, blacksmith Johne Smytht, and lawyer Waltir Ramsay were accused and convicted of celebrating Christmas, and all three were sentenced to the repentance stool on Sunday, January 24, to make “opin satisfactioun thairfor in presence of the heal congregation.” All three acquiesced to the Session and “becam [earnestly] penitent” before the church.[75] Upon their confession, pastor Robert Hamilton obeyed the Kirk’s further command to denounce Christmas publicly and to declare before the congregation that anyone within the parish who superstitiously observed “the said Zwil-day or ony utheris dayis, sould be punnischeid in lik manner.” Moreover, Hamilton warned that anyone who “abstenit fra thair wark and lawbour” on Christmas would be dragged before the whole Kirk to make penance, and in accordance with the Decalogue, he asserted that only Sunday should be kept holy and that recognizing the sanctity of any other day was a violation of the Sabbath.[76] Such an interpretation was consistent with the Reformed exegetical theology that all beliefs and practices lacking scriptural warrant must be” utterlie suppressed as damnabill to mannis salvatioun.”[77] That same day, the cutler James Clwny and Walter Zownger were thus charged of “violating the Sabbat day” by their “superstitius keping of Zwill-day haly day” and refusing to “wark and lawbour that day.” Surprisingly, the responses of Clwny and Zownger to the Session were diametrically opposed to one another. Clwny quickly promised never to celebrate Christmas in the future, and he was released with a warning thathe would beremanded tothe repentance stool upon breaking his promise.[78] Not only did Zownger refusetorepent, but afterwards he blatantly defied the Kirk by publicly announcing in the Gallowlaik, the general meeting-place of the crafts, that “it becam nocht honest men to sit upon the penitent stule,” and that he was “ane yowng man and saw Zwil-day kepit halyday, and that the tyme may cum that he may see the like yit.” In addition, Zownger tried to “mak his nychtbouris disobedient to the kirk” by encouraging them to disregard the Session’s mandate and exercise their own free choice regarding labor on Christmas.[79] Therefore, the Session recalled Zownger, severely admonished him, and gave him an ultimatum: either to “mak satisfactioun upon the penitent stuhl” before the entire congregation or be excommunicated. When an angry Zownger chose excommunication, the Kirk informed him that the only condition under which he could be readmitted to the community of the faithful was humble submission to its demands.[80]

After eighteen days of alienation from the visible community of faith, Zownger reconsidered his decision and returned to the Session on February 10 to subject himself to whatever punishment “the ministerye wil injone to him.” On the repentance stool, he “cam to agnitioun of his disobedience” in the presence of all for observing Christmas, stirring up the brethren to sin, and failing to comply to the Session through “stubborn ansueir[s]” despite being “twis admonesed,” and thereupon he was restored to the community.[81] Michael Graham points out that the Zownger case “underscores the restorative principle upon which the disciplinary system was based,” as “anyone willing to demonstrate remorse (albeit often in a humiliating way) would be welcomed back into the arms of the Kirk, no matter how serious the offense.”[82] A week earlier, Johne Sourdie was accused both of keeping “Zwil-day” and of inciting five others, also summoned before the Session, to celebrate with him. Sourdie confessed the former but vehemently denied the latter, and submitted himself “to correction of the kirk” by promising to treat Christmas as any other workday and making voluntary repentance “in face of the congregation.”[83] However, when Johne Days, Andro Crastaris, Alexander Smytht, Thomas Plafier, and Johne Thomson, the five men accompanying Sourdie, admitted to observing the holiday, they were arbitrarily released with private admonitions to “absten in tyme cuming fra the superstitius keping of Zwil-day. .. haly day” under pain of public contrition.[84] Graham accounts for such unequal punishment by postulating that the Session may have feared revolt after the first Zownger incident on January 24, and thereafter only those who were insubordinate to the Kirk or suspected of provoking others to superstition were sent to the repentance stool while the remainder was merely admonished.[85] Such a threat of public disturbance was the first sign to St. Andrews of its relative powerlessness to exterminate folk religious practices, like Christmas, which met important emotional needs among the populace.

Some craftsmen displayed great ignorance as to the alleged superstitiousness of Christmas when called before the Kirk Session. On January 12, when the mason James Thomson was questioned about celebrating Christmas, he gladly admitted that “he wald nocht work on Zwil-day”.[86] Sensing his theological naïveté, minister Robert Hamilton informed Thomson that “he sould nevir keip the said Zwil-day haly day, bot sould work on that day as on ony uthir day” and asked him whether he would stand by his previous statement. In light of this disclosure, Thomson quickly did an about-face and insisted that he would never observe the holiday “in tyme cuming, during his remaining in this citie,” and the Kirk forced him to promise “undir paine of presenting of hym self to the stuil of repentance” that even if nobody gave him any work on Christmas, “he sal wirk som riggen-stanis of his awin.”[87] Consistent with Session practices in 1560, those who erred out of ignorance were spared the repentance stool. That same day, the Session summoned William Bel for celebrating Christmas and especially for throwing a huge party on “Newar-day,” at which he was “ful of lychtis [liquor]” and “superstitiously” crying with a loud voice, “Zwil! Zwil! Zwil!” It is probable that “Newar-day” refers here to December 25; prior to 1600, the civil, ecclesiastical, and legal year began in Scotland on March 25, as attested by the dates in the Kirk Session registers. However, this reference indicates that popularly the year started at Yule, just as the Anglo-Saxons and the Icelanders began their year on December 25.[88] When Bel denied the accusations in the presence of only one witness, the Kirk requested that another witness should be located either to confirm or deny the charges and remanded all parties to return in eight days. However, a second witness could not be found, and the case was reluctantly dropped in accordance with medieval and scriptural standards of jurisprudence.

In cases where the Kirk was reasonably certain that someone had publicly observed Yule but lacked eyewitness testimony to substantiate its suspicions, it tried to circumvent this problem by calling large groups of co-workers who may have celebrated the holiday with the offender in the hope that at least two would incriminate him. One such recreant was the smith Charles Cuthtbert, who was summoned along with accomplices Alexander Scharp, Thomas Pittillo, and Dauid Brown on February 10.[89] Fortunately for Cuthtbert, his denial of “keping Zwil-day” was corroborated by his companions’ testimony, who further insisted that they never advocated “disobedience to the kirk.” Unable to prove Cuthtbert’s guilt, the Session released the group after forcing them, and “chieflie Charles Cuthtbert,” to promise never to celebrate the holiday in the future, but “evir to be obedient to the voce of the kirk.”[90] Immediately afterwards, ten more craftsmen, including four smiths, a saddler, and a cutler, were accused of failing to work on Christmas. It is surprising to note the lack of intelligence in their defense, for although none explicitly affirmed the violation, their common plea that they would “nevir. .. do the sam in tyme cuming” gave tacit admission to their previous superstition. Despite their implicit confession of guilt, all ten were dismissed upon merely pledging future obedience to the Kirk.[91] Such actions stand in sharp contrast to the severe punishment of Lathangye, Smytht, and Ramsay one month earlier and further validate the hypothesis that the Session was slowly realizing its impotence in matters of popular and folk religiosity.

2. Contempt For The Sacrament Of Baptism

However, the Kirk refused to tolerate any dissent which it judged as contemptuous toward the sacraments, particularly baptism, and punished all nonconformists sternly. On Wednesday December 9, the elders and deacons directed pastor Robert Hamilton to make public admonition the following Sunday that anyone with unbaptized infants who had not submitted their names on the “appointed day,” namely December 6, for their children to receive the sacrament nor presented their babies to the Kirk would be summarily “accusit and punisched” as transgressors “of the sacrament of baptisme.”[92] Thus, Robert Zowng, servant to the Laird of Kinkel, and his mistress, Effe Tweddel, were summoned by the Session on December 16, as these fornicators had failed to present their illegitimate child for baptism.[93] After Zowng lamely countered that he never realized that those who “presented nocht thair bairns to baptisme” would be punished, as if one need only follow the mandates of the Kirk under threat of censure, the infuriated Session ordered both him and Effe to make satisfaction on “the penitent stuil of the parroche kirk of this citie.”[94] However, the second half of his punishment was unique, in that he was coerced to pay alms to the collector for the poor, and afterwards to bring his child for baptism. Moreover, Effe was warned by co-elder and bailie Thomas Balfour that if she continued her fornication she “sal cum to be impresoned,” according to an order passed by the city council.[95] Such participation by Balfour furnishes a graphic example of the interwoven fabric of secular and ecclesiastical authority in St. Andrews.

Midwife baptism was also rejected by the Kirk as a Catholic desecration of the sacrament, and parents who feared for the precarious survival of their infants and reverted to the old practice were severely penalized by the Session. On March 1, Thomas Cok and Marion Boytour appeared before the Session because Boytour’s midwife had been apprehensive about the child’s life and “baptized the bairn.”[96] The Kirk inveighed against this practice on five grounds. First, the sacraments could only be rightly administered by “lawful ministers.. . appointed to the preaching of the word,” lest “they cease to be right Sacraments of Christ Jesus.” Second, in midwife baptism “women, whom the Holy Ghost will not suffer to teach in the congregation,” were sacrilegiously permitted to baptize.[97] Third, the ritual reinforced the “gross error” prevalent among the Scots that their “children be damned if they die without Baptism.”[98] Fourth, the fact that midwife baptism was carried out in “quiet and secret places” smacked of “the Pope’s Kirk” and its “wicked idolatry.”[99] Fifth, the ceremony violated the Book of Discipline’s decree that baptism could only be imparted on Sundays or following the sermon on days of prayer, and thus detracted the populace from bestowing “greater reverence to the administration of the sacraments.”[100] The Session forbade both parents from receiving communion on Easter and declared their baby’s baptism invalid.[101] However, concerned that the child needed proper baptism and alarmed by the threat of Anabaptism, the Kirk ordered Cok and Boytour to present “the bairn to baptisme” upon their readmission to the congregation in July.[102]

3. Religious Dissent Among University Students

University students at St. Andrews engaged in two mild forms of religious dissent: refusing to frequent the sermons, both on the Sabbath and on other days when the Word was preached; and violating the Sabbath by attending and participating in the popular play, Robin Hood. To ensure that “studentis wythin colleageis as inhabitantis wythtin this citie” would at least “heir the Word of God upon the Sabbat-day,” the Session passed a resolution on June 1 that one bailie, one elder, two deacons, and two civil officers would patrol each quarter of the town during the Sunday service starting July 11 to apprehend those absent from worship.[103] Such cooperation of the civil officers with the church hierarchy, along with the fact that bailie Thomas Balfour was given authority to enforce the mandate, further illustrates the inextricable unity of secular and sacred governance. On June 5, Robert Hamilton read the order from the pulpit, and warned that anyone guilty of Sabbath breach would be “punisched conform to the actis of the kirk.”[104] The resolution was evidently quite successful, as the only two cases of church absence following its pronouncement concerned the performance of Robin Hood.

Distressed by the fascination of the Scots with the 1555 production Robin Hood, the General Assembly of the national Kirk summoned elders Thomas Balfour and William Cok to appear in Edinburgh on March 2, 1574. The Assembly impelled Balfour and Cok to deliver the following order to pastor Robert Hamilton: “To command and chairge all. .. personis indwellaris in this citie and speitaly yowng men in general” not to violate the Sabbath by either attending or acting in “the playis of Robein Huid” on the next Sunday.[105] The chief opposition to Robin Hood probably arose not only from the unseemliness of commending the exploits of a robber, but because, in gathering for it, his admirers might be prone, the Assembly conjectured, to imitate his example.

Moreover, the General Assembly asserted that the observance caused the profanation of fasts as well as of the Sabbath.[106] Hence, Parliament concurred by passing an act that forbade coming to the play under pain of whatever punishment the ecclesiastical “seat may injone to them.”[107] Despite the act, a multitude of St. Andrews students attended the play when it arrived in nearby Anstruther Wester on July 20.[108] When the Session met the following Wednesday to determine the fate of its local students, it saw a remarkable split of opinion. On the one hand, Hamilton desired to make a public spectacle of the students by first admonishing them before the congregation and then temporarily excommunicating them all.[109] However, the elders, who thought better of the minister’s decision, seemed quite sympathetic both to the students’ behavior and the dramatic production, and resolved to reconvene in eight days after personally weighing the alternatives. In an unprecedented turn of events, the July 28 Kirk Session not only excused the students for their disobedience, but in light of strong pressure from the community, actually decreed that Master Patrick Authinlek be given license to perform Robin Hood in St. Luke’s Evangel on Sunday, August 1.[110] The Session made an ingenious attempt to save a small degree of face by appointing a team consisting of Minister Lord Rectour, Provost of Saint Salvator College M. Johnne Rutherfurd, and Principal of Saint Leonard College James Wilke to revise the play’s script in order to remove any objectionable elements, ordering that the performance occur in the afternoon following the Sunday sermon, and reminding the populace that the “playing thairof be nocht occasioun to wythtdraw. .. fra heryng of the preaching.”[111] Nevertheless, the Session’s remarkable decision to tolerate and even sanction such Sabbath violation and blatant disregard of the General Assembly was the culmination of ecclesiastical inability to prevent acts of popular religiosity and entertainment.

V. Assessment And Evaluation Of Kirk Session Activity In 1574

In 1574, the St. Andrews Kirk Session heard a total of thirty religious dissent cases, making up 68 percent of the forty-four cases brought before the morals court that year. These dissension cases comprised twenty-six observations of Christmas (86 percent), two transgressions of baptism (7 percent), and two instances of Sabbath breach (7 percent), including the infamous Robin Hood incident.[112] Two key observations emerge from the data. First, the Kirk successfully imposed its authority in cases regarding the maintenance of essential Reformed doctrines, such as the sacrament of baptism. Second, apart from the former cases, the common threefold thematic sequence underlying the Session’s activity was (a) its characteristically harsh initial punishment of a popular religious infraction followed by (b) its recognition of the inefficacy of such discipline and the potential of such discipline for sparking public revolt on the basis of what I would dub a “turning point case,” which eventually induced (c) the Kirk’s acquiescence to the populace. With respect to Yule, the earliest offenders like Lathangye, Smytht, and Ramsay were given the maximal punishment of repentance before the congregation, while the Zownger turning point case reduced the mainstream censure to private admonition. Moreover, the evidence indicates that Christmas was still celebrated in St. Andrews after 1573–1574, although the Session refused to summon any offenders until the mid-1590s, when the national Kirk became obsessed by fears of Catholic conspiracy.[113] At least six metalworkers, including Charles Hageye, William Swyne, Patrik Brown, Dauid Brwce, James Murdo, and Johne Jakson, neglected to work and openly sang carols on December 25, 1574, for which they received no chastisement from the 1575 Session.[114]

In like manner, while minister Robert Hamilton’s initial response to the large student attendance at the Anstruther Wester production of Robin Hood was to excommunicate temporarily the perpetrators from the Eucharist, such a turning point case caused a rift among the Session, which thereby resolved to sanction the play’s performance on the Sabbath. On top of that, the Session permitted a second presentation of Robin Hood in 1575 during a fast ordained by the General Assembly.[115] Because of its laxity regarding Christmas and Sabbath breach, the Session was reprimanded that year by the General Assembly, which deputized several Edinburgh-area ministers and the Edinburgh Kirk Session to investigate charges against the St. Andrews elders and Robert Hamilton. Although Hamilton refused to heed the Assembly’s subpoena to appear at Edinburgh on February 7, excusing himself “be the business of the college,” the Edinburgh clergy dragged him to the city on February 24. At the session, Hamilton gave tacit admission to the keeping of Yule among the populace by neither affirming nor denying the allegation. Concerning the charge of allowing “profane playes and such other things” on the Sabbath, Hamilton confessed that “certane servands and young children plaid them certane days” and that” [a]ne clark play wes plaid be the scollouris of the grammar-scull,” but excused them on the grounds that they were never performed “at the tyme of preching”[116] Hence, the Session was unable to abolish either the celebration of Christmas, despite its Catholic overtones, or the folk tradition of spring and midsummer festivities manifested in the production of Robin Hood.

Although such incapacity demarcated the practicable limit of “godly discipline” beyond which the St. Andrews Kirk could not successfully regulate at the level enforced by Knox, the disciplinary failures of 1574 seemed to provoke little alarm among the members of the Session. This is because the attempt to ban folk practices carrying faint allusions to a “pagan” way of life, such as Christmas and transitional celebrations between spring and summer, served primarily as a defense mechanism for retaining the high degree of discipline characterizing Knox’s administration and was not ultimately about eradicating relatively harmless practices frowned upon but previously tolerated by the Kirk. This fact is confirmed by the severity with which sacrament-breakers were punished, showing the Session’s indissoluble refusal to allow regression on the measure of discipline it had achieved under Knox. Bearing out the truth of the proverb, “The best defense is a good offense,” what appeared on the surface as a lack of strength proved a veiled form of power, as the Session’s failure to ban innocuous traditions was successful in indirectly establishing among the populace the point supplying the underlying motivation for the ban. By following Knox’s death with sterner discipline than had been executed during his lifetime and summoning large groups of people to answer for widespread yet supposedly profane practices, the Session psychologically prevented the citizens of St. Andrews from anticipating any decline in future leadership of the Kirk or in its degree of “godly discipline,” much less from contemplating retreat to the city’s Catholic past.

VI. Conclusion

The St. Andrews Reformation was an extremely abrupt break with the medieval Catholic past which allowed the Reformers to put their ideals straight into practice.[117] This study disclosed how the 1560 Kirk Session successfully facilitated the basic transition to essential Reformed faith and practice through harsh disciplinary measures. Foremost in such a transition was the public recantation of priests, who were consigned to the repentance stool either if they dared to defend Catholic theology after the installation of Knox or desired to be considered for the Reformed clergy. These recantations, especially the systematic disavowal of Catholicism by Friar Gresone, had a tremendous psychological impact on the spiritually distressed laity, who had virtually no recourse but to embrace the Reformed Kirk and mentalité as necessary to salvation. Further, the high cohesion between ecclesiastical and civil authorities rendered nearly impossible any sustained opposition to the Kirk. For example, Catholic adherents who protested the Calvinist sacramental system and the character of Knox were frequently excommunicated by the Session and delivered to the civil authorities, five of which were elders. The Kirk’s disciplinary actions yielded dramatic results, such that popular resistance to the Reformed faith vanished after 1560.

However, this study revealed that the Session was unable to eradicate folk religious practices in 1574, despite its use of equally severe punishment. In light of the Earl of Morton’s ascendancy in 1572, the political situation was ripe for the Session to exert its control gradually over popular religiosity in order to realize the standard of “ane perfyt reformed kyrk” and thereby react effectively to Knox’s death. But the Kirk was treading on thin ice by challenging some of the dearest traditions of Scots society, including the celebration of Christmas and secular forms of entertainment.[118] Tracing a common trajectory between these traditions, this study illustrated how the Session sternly castigated initial offenders, then realized on the basis of a turning point case that its discipline was both ineffective and had the potential to generate public unrest, and finally acceded to the custom. While the first Yule-keepers summoned by the Kirk were sentenced to the repentance stool, the rebellion of Walter Zownger coupled with his arousal of ecclesiastical disobedience among the populace caused the Session merely to admonish the remainder of celebrants in 1574. In addition, the Session deliberately overlooked/ all instances of Yule observance from 1575 to the mid-1590s. Similarly, the massive student attendance at the illegal Anstruther Wester production of Robin Hood served as the turning point case that constrained the Kirk to sanction the play’s performance in St. Andrews.[119] In this way, folk religious practices and popular Scottish traditions persisted in spite of powerful incipient opposition from the Session.

Notwithstanding its external appearance, such a show of force was chiefly a preventative measure against the threat of popular insistence for a reduction of disciplinary intensity in the wake of the death of the leader who generated it. Therefore, the Session’s apparent weakness proved a victory in disguise which successfully facilitated the transfer of authority from Knox to the elders and pastors within the presbyterian structure he implemented without disciplinary loss. In retrospect, the handling of religious dissent cases by the St. Andrews Kirk Session from 1560 to 1574 appears to have been unwittingly characterized more by the version of sola scriptura embraced by Luther than that embraced by most Reformed theologians, including Zwingli, Calvin, and Knox himself. While Luther maintained that only those beliefs and practices that were explicitly contrary to Scripture should be abolished, thus leaving intact ceremonial and cultural practices that did not impugn Holy Writ, Reformed thinkers typically reasoned that all elements in church life and practice not explicitly commanded in the Bible should be prohibited.[120] Although the members of the Session doctrinally subscribed to the latter perspective, it seems that on the practical level they administered discipline according to the former. This impression is substantiated by the Session’s unwavering disciplinary efforts to suppress all forms of dissent that it regarded as plainly forbidden by Scripture coupled with its unwillingness to sustain any more than a transitory front against practices like Christmas and seasonal celebrations that could be neither validated nor invalidated by Scripture and that presented at worst a negligible threat to the Reformed world-view. It is the author’s hope that, whether or not one agrees with the approach taken or methods used by the St. Andrews Kirk Session, this case study of a particular Reformed church that, in the midst of religious and political transition, successfully procured a high level of discipleship from the majority of its members will prove instructive for contemporary churches seeking to remain faithful to the biblical mandate for “godly discipline.”

Notes

1. Jane E. A. Dawson, “ ‘The Face of Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk’: St. Andrews and the Early Scottish Reformation,” in Humanism and Reform: The Church in Europe, England, and Scotland, 1400- 1643 (ed. James Kirk; SCH Subsidia 8; Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 415–16.
2. The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 1124-1707 (12 vols.; London: HMSO, 1814–1875), 2:535; Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries (3d ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 313; Michael F. Graham, The Uses of Reform: ‘Godly Discipline’ and Popular Behavior in Scotland and Beyond, 1560–1610 (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions: History, Culture, Religion, Ideas 58; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 46.
3. The Scots Confession, 1560 (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1960), 44–45.
4. For details of the cases, see Graham, Uses of Reform, 90–91; Register of the Ministers, Elders, and Deacons of the Christian Congregation of St. Andrews, 1559–1600 (ed. D. Hay Fleming; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: Scottish History Society 1889–1890), 1:5–44, 386–407 (hereafter RStAKS). I am defining “religious dissent” broadly to encompass all cases concerning unorthodox beliefs or practices (e.g, recantations from Catholicism), rebellion or disobedience specifically against the Reformed Kirk, or religious discontent among the populace. Graham, who defines the term more narrowly, counts only sixty-one instances of “religious dissent or unorthodox practices” and classifies the remaining fourteen instances as either “Sabbath breach,” “ rebellion against kirk/disobedience,” or “leftover cases which do not fit the listed categories.”
5. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 429.
6. RStAKS, 1:11–13.
7. Ibid., 1:10-11.
8. Ibid., 1:15.
9. Geoffrey Parker, “The ‘Kirk By Law’ Established and Origins of ‘The Taming of Scotland’: Saint Andrews, 1559–1600,” in Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition (ed. Raymond A. Mentzer; Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994), 180.
10. Michael Graham, Equality before the Kirk? Church Discipline and the Elite in Reformation-Era Scotland,” ARG 84 (1993): 289-90.
11. RStAKS, 1:14.
12. Liber Collegii Nostre Domine (ed. J. Robertson; Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1846), 53.
13. The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland (ed. John Maitland Thomson; Edinburgh: H. M. General Register House, 1882), 229.
14. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe (ed. Stephen Reed Cattley; London: R. B. Seeley & W. Burnside, 1837–1841), 558, 645; Cairns, Christianity, 312.
15. Dawson, Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk, 429.
16. RStAKS, 1:16–17.
17. Cairns, Christianity, 303.
18. RStAKS, 1:17–18.
19. That these two served the same respective roles in popular estimation at this time is illustrated by Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation (New York: Penguin, 2003), 593–95.
20. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 429.
21. Michael Lynch, Calvinism in Scotland, 1559-1638, in International Calvinism, 1541–1715 (ed. Menna Prestwich; Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 229.
22. RStAKS, 1:13.
23. Ibid.; see also William E. K. Rankin, The Parish Church of the Holy Trinity, St. Andrews (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1955), 40, 55, 58, 73-74.
24. RStAKS, 1:13, 15; see also Rankin, Church of the Holy Trinity, 96, 98.
25. Cf. Michael Graham, Social Discipline in Scotland, 1560-1610, in Sin and the Calvinists, 157.
26. Graham, Uses of Reform, 90.
27. Ibid., 91.
28. Ibid., 92.
29. RStAKS, 1:11.
30. Ibid., 1:33.
31. Ibid., 1:36.
32. Ibid., 1:34-35; see also Graham, Uses of Reform, 91. Fleming notes that the phrase “Divellis dirt” was used to express the greatest contempt, and that asafoetida pills are commonly known as “devil’s dirt pills” in Forfarshire.
33. RStAKS, 1:36.
34. Ibid.
35. John Lee, Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland (ed. W. Lee; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, 1860), 1:228.
36. RStAKS, 1:5, 4–4.
37. RStAKS, 1:36.
38. For discussion see Bruce Lenman, “The Limits of Godly Discipline in the Early Modern Period with Particular Reference to England and Scotland,” in Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800 (ed. Kaspar von Greyerz; London: German Historical Institute, 1984), 125; James K. Cameron, ed., The First Book of Discipline (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1972), 160; G. W. Bromiley, ed. and trans., Zwingli and Bullinger (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953), 125; Ivo Macnaughton Clark, A History of Church Discipline in Scotland (Aberdeen: W. & W. Lindsay, 1929), 222. Cameron points out that “the rule of Christ” mentioned by Knox refers to Matt 18:15–17, and Bromiley affirms the Reformers’ observation of “the general demand of Scripture for two or three witnesses.”
39. Graham, Uses of Reform, 92.
40. Parker, “Kirk By Law,” 161–62.
41. RStAKS, 1:10–44.
42. Parker, “Kirk By Law,” 173. Graham (Uses of Reform, 92) has also noted Parker’s error.
43. James Kirk, Patterns of Reform: Continuity and Change in the Reformation Kirk (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 73–75.
44. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 422–23.
45. Kirk, Patterns of Reform, 223–25.
46. Graham, Uses of Reform, 78–80.
47. Parker, “Kirk by Law,” 167.
48. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 430.
49. RStAKS, 1:198.
50. Ibid., 1:62-174; Graham, Uses of Reform, 90.
51. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 418.
52. Ibid., 429.
53. RStAKS, 1:81–82.
54. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 429.
55. Kirk, Patterns of Reform, 76.
56. RStAKS, 1:135.
57. Ibid., 1:136.
58. Ibid., 1:137-39; Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 429.
59. RStAKS, 1:62–385; Graham, Uses of Reform, 90–91.
60. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 427.
61. RStAKS, 1:198 (emphasis added).
62. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 428.
63. Cameron, First Book of Discipline, 88.
64. Ibid., 89.
65. Ibid., 94-95.
66. Ibid., 181-82.
67. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 423–24.
68. Ibid., 434; see also Graham, Uses of Reform, 77.
69. Dawson, Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk, 425.
70. RStAKS, 1:340–41.
71. James Kirk, The Exercise of Ecclesiastical Patronage by the Crown, 1560–1572, in The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland (ed. Ian B. Cowan and Duncan Sahw; Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1983), 105–10.
72. Lynch, Calvinism in Scotland, 231-32.
73. Graham, Uses of Reform, 93.
74. RStAKS, 1:387; Graham, Uses of Reform, 92.
75. RStAKS, 1:388.
76. Ibid.
77. Cameron, First Book of Discipline, 87.
78. RStAKS, 1:389; Ian B. Cowan, The Scottish Reformation (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982), 156; Graham, Uses of Reform, 92.
79. RStAKS, 1:389.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid., l:390.
83. Graham, Uses of Reform, 85.
84. RStAKS, l:389–90. Ibid., 1:390.
85. Graham, Uses of Reform, 92.
86. RStAKS, 1:404.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid., 1:390.
90. Ibid.
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid., 1:386.
93. Ibid., 1:368.
94. Ibid., 1:386.
95. Ibid., 1:386-87.
96. Thomas Thomson, ed., T he Booke of the Universal Kirk of Scotland (3 vols.; Edinburgh: Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, 1839–1845), 1:314.
97. Scots Confession, 49.
98. Cameron, First Book of Discipline, 182.
99. John Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland (ed. William Croft Dickinson; 2 vols., Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1949), 1:340.
100. Cameron, First Book of Discipline, 182.
101. Thomson, Booke of the Universal Kirkand, 1:314.
102. RStAKS, 1:395.
103. Ibid., 1:394.
104. Ibid., 1:395.
105. Ibid., 1:406.
106. Thomson, Booke of the Universal Kirk, 2:407, 410, 784.
107. The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 2:500.
108. Lee, Lectures, 1:313.
109. Ibid., 1:314.
110. RStAKS, 1:396.
111. Ibid.; see also Cowan, Scottish Reformation, 187. However, attending the play would entail missing the afternoon catechism.
112. RStAKS, 1:386–407.
113. Graham, Uses o Reform, 93.
114. Thomson, Booke of the Universal Kirk, 1:334, 339; Cowan, Scottish Reformation, 156.
115. Thomson, Booke of the Universal Kirk, 1:312.
116. Ibid.; see also Lee, Lectures, 1:313-14.
117. Dawson, “Ane Perfyt Reformed Kyrk,” 418.
118. Graham, Uses of Reform, 286.
119. Cowan, Scottish Reformation, 157.
120. See the discussion in Basil Hall, “Ulrich Zwingli,” in A History of Christian Doctrine (ed. Hubert Cunliffe-Jones; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 354; James D. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations: 1450–1650 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 95; Knox, History, 2:185–86.