Gender in Scotland, 1200-1800: Place, Faith and Politics

Gender influenced every aspect of life in medieval and early modern Scotland. This collection illuminates how gendered expectations and experiences shaped people’s relationships with where they lived, what they believed and how they exercised power.
Showcasing new work by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, essays in this collection draw upon a wide range of sources to present familiar topics in original ways, while opening up unexpected vistas for our historical sight.
Essays range from innovative interpretations of famous people and well-known events to examinations of the thoughts and activities of ordinary Scots, with consideration also for how people from the past are publicly commemorated today. Together, they demonstrate the centrality of gender in the shaping of Scottish history.

Janay Nugent is Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Lethbridge, Canada. Her research specialisation is gender, family and youth in early modern Scotland. She is co-editor with Elizabeth Ewan of Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland (Ashgate, 2008) and Children and Youth in Premodern Scotland (Boydell, 2015), as well as co-author with Laura A. M. Stewart of Union and Revolution: Scotland and Beyond, 1625-1745 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), shortlisted for the Scotland’s National Book Awards in 2021 (Saltire Society Scotland / Comannn Crann Na H-Alba).

Cathryn Spence is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at University of Guelph, Canada. She specialises in late medieval and early modern history, and is secretary for the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland. She is author of Women, Credit, and Debt in Early Modern Scotland (Manchester, 2016), which won the Women’s History Network Prize, and co-editor with Aaron Allen of The Housemails Tax 1634-6 (Boydell, 2014).

Mairi Cowan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada. She specialises in medieval and early modern history and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. She is the author of Death, Life, and Religious Change in Scottish Towns c. 1350-1560 (Manchester, 2012) and The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada (McGill-Queen’s, 2022).