The Elect and the Damned: the material culture of belief in post-Reformation Scotland, 1560 to 1750
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sci
Abstract
This project asks: How can material culture present a more complex picture of religious life in post-Reformation Scotland? What can it reveal about the diverse practices of belief? How might it complicate traditional narratives of the long association of kirk, state and national identity? We are looking for someone with interests in early modern history and material culture, who wants to explore these questions.
The project is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, which is a centre of excellence for study and research in history of art, and National Museums Scotland, one of the UK's leading museums and custodian of Scotland's national historical collections. This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Catriona Murray (Lecturer, History of Art, University of Edinburgh) and Dr Anna Groundwater (Principal Curator, Renaissance and Early Modern History, National Museums Scotland).
This project examines religious material culture produced and used in the centuries following the Scottish Protestant Reformation. Religious practice and doctrine were central in shaping the everyday lives of early modern society in Scotland as elsewhere in Europe. Using National Museums Scotland's collections of objects associated with the practice and performance of religious belief in Scotland, this project investigates the impact of the seismic changes of the Reformation on the material culture used in public ritual and private devotion, as well as in the official regulation of religion. It considers too such objects held in regional museums, and contained within Treasure Trove data, to evaluate how representative the national collection is of the complexities of religious practice in post-Reformation Scotland. In doing so, it will review NMS's interpretation of these collections, to consider their relevance within the religious diversity of today.
The historiography of post-Reformation Scotland has historically been dominated by a Presbyterian narrative - integral to understandings of early modern national identity - of Scotland as the kingdom of the 'Elect'. Recent research challenges that narrative's hegemony, and this project will nuance arguably overly-Protestant narratives within the NMS's collections and displays. It will suggest new curatorial strategies for communicating a more heterogeneous picture of religious practice, in the redevelopment of the Scotland Galleries of the National Museum in Edinburgh. It will consider too how these narratives might encompass non-specialist understandings of Scotland's religious past, and its current resonances:
Research questions include:
What do the materiality and performative functions of objects held by National Museums Scotland suggest of human interaction with religious material culture, and communal or private worship following the Reformation?
How might material culture alter prevalent narratives of post-Reformation Scotland to reflect a more diverse picture of religious conformity and conviction, and the role of the state?
How might concepts of materiality and performance be communicated to a non-specialist audience?
How might public engagement and participatory approaches gauge current understandings of the religious past, and its resonances in the diversity of belief today?
The project is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, which is a centre of excellence for study and research in history of art, and National Museums Scotland, one of the UK's leading museums and custodian of Scotland's national historical collections. This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Catriona Murray (Lecturer, History of Art, University of Edinburgh) and Dr Anna Groundwater (Principal Curator, Renaissance and Early Modern History, National Museums Scotland).
This project examines religious material culture produced and used in the centuries following the Scottish Protestant Reformation. Religious practice and doctrine were central in shaping the everyday lives of early modern society in Scotland as elsewhere in Europe. Using National Museums Scotland's collections of objects associated with the practice and performance of religious belief in Scotland, this project investigates the impact of the seismic changes of the Reformation on the material culture used in public ritual and private devotion, as well as in the official regulation of religion. It considers too such objects held in regional museums, and contained within Treasure Trove data, to evaluate how representative the national collection is of the complexities of religious practice in post-Reformation Scotland. In doing so, it will review NMS's interpretation of these collections, to consider their relevance within the religious diversity of today.
The historiography of post-Reformation Scotland has historically been dominated by a Presbyterian narrative - integral to understandings of early modern national identity - of Scotland as the kingdom of the 'Elect'. Recent research challenges that narrative's hegemony, and this project will nuance arguably overly-Protestant narratives within the NMS's collections and displays. It will suggest new curatorial strategies for communicating a more heterogeneous picture of religious practice, in the redevelopment of the Scotland Galleries of the National Museum in Edinburgh. It will consider too how these narratives might encompass non-specialist understandings of Scotland's religious past, and its current resonances:
Research questions include:
What do the materiality and performative functions of objects held by National Museums Scotland suggest of human interaction with religious material culture, and communal or private worship following the Reformation?
How might material culture alter prevalent narratives of post-Reformation Scotland to reflect a more diverse picture of religious conformity and conviction, and the role of the state?
How might concepts of materiality and performance be communicated to a non-specialist audience?
How might public engagement and participatory approaches gauge current understandings of the religious past, and its resonances in the diversity of belief today?
People |
ORCID iD |
| Catriona Murray (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Molly Ingham (Student) |