Edinburgh and the Reformation

Edinburgh’s reformation was one of the last of the great city reformations of the sixteenth century. It took on a highly distinctive shape due to the burgh’s social and economic problems and its position as a cockpit for English policy in Scotland and the shifting factionalism of Scottish politics. In studies of the Scottish Reformation, too little attention has been paid to the nature of Scottish society itself. In a society so conscious of rank, tradition and precedent, the Reformation was onl