Hitherto unpublished documents from early modern Scotland offer fascinating insights into contemporary life.
Miscellanies published by the Scottish History Society bring together critical editions of important and previously unpublished manuscripts of relevance to Scottish history.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comprise an essential collection for the study of early modern Scottish History, and help to illuminate the body of unpublished sources still waiting tobe explored.