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From the 15th
to the 17th century an intellectual movement known as the Renaissance
transformed Scotland. Its key invention was the printing press,
which brought an end to idea being cloistered up in monasteries
and began to spread textual knowledge throughout Scottish society.
It revolutionised Scotland’s two main institutions, the Court
and the Kirk (or Church), and triggered a social and religious revolution
that irreversibly swept the established order away. Historians call
this time the ‘early modern’, for in a sense it was the
end of the medieval world and the birth of the modern.
What was
the Renaissance?
The Renaissance was the rediscovery of the knowledge of the ancient
Greeks and Romans. Across Western Europe lost classical texts came
to light, inspiring a movement known as Humanism which crossed all
sorts of disciplines: art, architecture, philosophy, science and
literature. In its essence, Renaissance Humanism put man rather
than God at the centre of the world, moving away from the divine
and mysterious towards the practical.
Scotland
Reborn?
The Renaissance saw nation states being defined across Western Europe,
and in Scotland the Stewart monarchy promoted a strong sense of
Scottish identity. The state evolved rapidly, with institutions
like the Scottish Parliament being created along with regular taxation
and standing armed and naval forces. Also, the expansion of the
state led to increased emphasis on law rather than kin as the pro-active
element in society, having, perhaps, a detrimental effect on the
clans.
For the Scots the Renaissance was problematic. Across Europe, even
south of the border, it heralded the rebirth and emulation of the
lost glories of the Roman Empire, however, the Scots knew they had
never been conquered by Rome. In fact, they had been the barbarians
- the dark land beyond the frontier. It is possible that in entering
this new world, some Scots came to see elements of their past, in
particular Gaelic culture, as somehow barbaric.
When Did
the Renaissance Begin?
King James I (1424-37) is seen as laying down new patterns of behaviour
that over the next hundred years would flower into a fully fledged
Renaissance in Scotland, although for many historians the reign
of King James III (1460-88) marks the crucial turning point. Both
are members of the famous Stewart dynasty of kings and queens which
succeeded the Bruces after the Wars of Independence.
The Stewarts
The Stewarts could claim one of the oldest royal pedigrees in Europe.
Historically they can be traced back through the Bruces to the Canmore
Kings of Alba, and through Kenneth MacAlpine (842-858) to the first
Gaelic King of Dál Riata, Fergus Mór mac Erc, and
on through a line of mythological kings to Scotia- the Egyptian
Pharaoh’s daughter. Compared to the Tudors in England, a Welsh
dynasty who claimed descent from King Arthur, the Stewarts had a
far longer lineage. For a Renaissance populace very much structured
by status, a long lineage was important.
‘Emperors
of Scotland’
One important status symbol of the Renaissance was the closed crown.
Symbolic of an empire, it allowed a king to declare a far superior
form of jurisdiction. The ceiling of St Machar’s Cathedral
in Aberdeen displays all the imperial crowned heads of Europe with
that right: The Holy Roman Emperor, The English, the French, the
Corsicans and the Scots. So Scotland was in the top division of
kingship. James III's coins pictured him with an imperial crown,
and later kings had the spires of Scottish churches in important
burghs crowned symbolically, like St Giles in Edinburgh or King’s
College in Aberdeen.
 So
the Stewarts had symbolic advantages, and they set out to further
these advantages, politically, through marriage. James II married
the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful nobles in Europe,
the Duke of Burgundy, and managed to marry off his sister to the King
of France. James IV (1488-1513) married Margaret Tudor, of the new
English royal house - a union which placed the Stewarts in line for
the English kingship if Henry VIII’s line failed. James V married
into the powerful French houses of Valois and Guise, and his daughter,
the famous Mary, Queen of Scots, married Francois II, heir to the
French crown.
In the end, the vaulting ambitions and sheer success of the House
of Stewart (or 'Stuart' after Mary went to France) brought Scotland
near unification with France, and the Union of the Crowns with England
in 1603.
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