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Chapter 9
Renaissance Scotland (1460–1542)
In This Chapter
Focusing on the Renaissance
Considering the reigns of James III, James IV and James V
Looking at everyday life in Renaissance Scotland
The eight decades between 1460 and 1542 represented a flourishing of art and culture in Scotland, referred to by historians as the Renaissance. The term
renaissance
means ‘rebirth’, and the Renaissance was all about a rediscovery of the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome (in contrast to what was thought of as the barbaric Gothic world of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’).
The Renaissance began in 14th-century Florence and spread to the rest of Europe over the course of the next few centuries. The artists and intellectuals who were at the forefront of the Renaissance thought of themselves as
humanists
– they focused on what it meant to be human. Because of this, artists like Leonardo da Vinci moved away from concentrating only on religious themes and depicted the beauty of nature and even ordinary people, rather than devils, saints and God. Scholars also tried to provide more rational approaches to understanding the world. Machiavelli, in his famous work
The Prince,
tried to describe political life as it really was.
No one at the time called this period the Renaissance. That term came later, in the 19th century.
The Renaissance
The Renaissance was important, not only because it bequeathed to us some wonderful art, architecture, literature and music, but also because it marked the transition of the ruling elite in Scotland from a warrior caste to a more civilised and refined one. The influence was not simply restricted to a tiny few. The adoption of humanistic values provided a basis for future achievements in education and laid the foundations for what would later be known as the Scottish Enlightenment (see Chapter 13).
Although the Renaissance suggests a more cultured world with respect for human life, progress and knowledge, the old black arts of backstabbing, murder and war continued unabated in Scotland in the late Middle Ages.
Monarchy
From James III onward, the nature of kingship in Scotland began to change. The Stewart kings began to think of themselves as supreme rulers. This idea had its roots in Roman law:
Rex in regnosuo imperator est
(The king is emperor in his own kingdom). By declaring themselves ‘emperors’, kings were claiming that they alone were in a position to dispense justice.
In 1469, the Scottish Parliament passed a law declaring that James III possessed ‘full jurisdiction and empire within his realm’. To let everyone know that James was supreme ruler, a massive publicity campaign was carried out. Silver coins (called
groats
) were minted; on these coins was the image of the king wearing a closed, arched, imperial crown in place of the open circlet of earlier kings. This coin was the first to be minted with the monarch’s portrait on it outside of Italy. Soon, the image of the king began to find its way into heraldry, royal seals, manuscripts and sculptures.
These images of the king were important for a number of reasons:
They promoted a cult of the monarch.
They furthered royal authority over the powerful feuding landed families of Scotland.
They fended off English claims to feudal superiority over Scotland.
They created a sense of national sovereignty and, with it, territorial consolidation.
Art
The Stewart kings from James III through to James V all imported commissioned work of a particularly high quality from French and Flemish artists.
The St Salvator’s mace of the University of St Andrews was made for Bishop Ke
The Hours of James IV and Margaret Tudor,
which dates from 1503, produced by Simon Bening, and given by James to his wife to commemorate their marriage.
Unfortunately, there are no signed paintings by Scottish artists from before the reign of James VI. Also, much of the artwork in churches was destroyed by Protestant zealots during the Reformation, so we can only guess at the richness of Scotland’s religious artistic heritage.
Architecture
The advent of artillery had made castles irrelevant in warfare, but that didn’t stop monarchs building and rebuilding them. Monarchs have a thing for palaces, not only because palaces advertise their wealth and status but also because palaces are pretty nice places to live.
Palace building began in earnest with James III, accelerated under James IV and reached a peak in the reign of James V. The two most enduring and important examples of Renaissance palaces are Stirling Castle and Falkland Palace in Fife. Between 1501 and 1541, James IV and James V of Scotland transformed the old castle of Falkland into a beautiful royal palace, but the most impressive architectural work was at Stirling (see Figure 9-1) and includes the King’s Old Building, the Great Hall and the Forework.
© iStock.com/Martin McCarthy
Figure 9-1:
Stirling Castle.
James IV also renovated the Chapel Royal, one of two churches within Stirling Castle at this time. In 1501, he received approval from the pope for the creation of a college of priests. His successor continued and expanded his building programme, creating the centrepiece of the castle, the Royal Palace, built under the direction of Sir James Hamilton of Fi
There was also rebuilding at Holyrood and the Castle in Edinburgh. The north wing was added to Linlithgow Palace in 1518. Church building accelerated too in the period of the late 15th and earlier 16th centuries with the establishment of around 40 new collegiate churches.
All these new buildings were built in the Romanesque fashion with pillars and columns prominent (the entrance to the Chapel Royal at Stirling is a good example). But Scottish architects didn’t always slavishly follow the patterns and styles from abroad; instead, they mixed local styles and materials with the more obvious Continental influences.
Education
The Renaissance put tremendous stress on the importance of education to build a rounded, honourable person who was equally comfortable with wielding a sword and reading a philosophical text. The subjects that made up a Renaissance education were poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy and rhetoric.
James IV was the ideal Renaissance king. The Spanish envoy Pedro de Ayala, in a report to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, said of him:
His knowledge of languages is wonderful. He is well read in the Bible and in some other devout books. He is a good historian. He has read many Latin and French histories and profited by them.
Of course, the monarch, like other important people, was privately tutored by eminent scholars, but what about the rest of the population? Grammar and song schools had initially been attached to cathedrals or collegiate churches, but as the years rolled by, they were found in the royal burghs and some small towns. Although primarily concerned with the education of boys, ‘sewing’ schools for girls existed in Edinburgh by the end of the 15th century.
What boosted literacy – at least among the well-to-do – was the passing of an act by the Scottish Parliament in 1496 that required all the sons of barons and freeholders to attend grammar schools to learn Latin. By this measure, it was reckoned that 60 per cent of the Scottish nobility were literate by 1500. However, the common people were left mostly illiterate until the Reformation stressed the necessity to read the Bible (see Chapter 10).
The universities were really training colleges for the clergy. But ambitious laymen began to enter universities to receive an education that would allow them to challenge the monopoly that clerics had established in posts in government and the law.
Scotland already had two universities by the time James III assumed the throne: St Andrews (1412) and Glasgow (1451). During the Renaissance period, Aberdeen University was founded in 1495 as King’s College (another college, Marischal, was added in 1593). St Leonard’s College was added to St Andrews in 1512 and the original St John’s College of the university was re-founded by Cardinal James Beaton under the name St Mary’s College in 1538 to counteract the ‘heresies’ resulting from the emerging Scottish Reformation and emphasise traditional Catholic teachings.
The universities of Scotland were part of a European culture, and many graduates went abroad to complete a second degree. Indeed, many of the lecturers and tutors had been trained in humanist studies in important centres of learning such as Paris and Cologne. Some of the greatest European scholars of that period were Scottish – for example, Hector Boece, the first principal of the University of Aberdeen, and John Major or Mair, who wrote in Latin a
History of Greater Britain.
It was through the universities that new ideas of humanism – and later Protestantism – entered Scotland.
Literature
Literature was perhaps Scotland’s greatest contribution to the Renaissance. James IV’s decision to grant permission for a printing press to operate in Edinburgh in 1507 allowed for a wider distribution of Scottish literary works. The titans of literature in this period were
Robert Henryson, a school teacher from Dumfries
William Dunbar, poet at the royal court of James IV
Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld
Sir David Lindsay, Lord Lyon, King of Arms
Gavin Douglas’s most important work was a Scots translation of Virgil’s epic Latin poem
The Aeneid,
which was the first version of any of the great classical works to be written in a language native to the British Isles. The others wrote in a lyrical and satirical style. Henryson’s major work was
Morall Fabillis,
which is a series of 13 interco
The Thissil and the Rois,
Dunbar advised newly married James IV against philandering, not that it did much good – the Stewarts, between them, sired scores of illegitimate children! But the most biting satire was Lindsay’s
Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estatis,
which poked fun at corrupt state officials and clergymen, and is considered by many to be the greatest Scottish play ever written.
Music
Not very much is left of pre-Reformation music, but most historians would agree that Robert Carver, a canon of Scone Abbey, was the outstanding composer of the Renaissance period.
The Carver Choirbook
contains music for five masses and two shorter pieces, as well as some English and Burgundian music. It is reckoned that it took a highly trained choir to sing Carver’s
polyphonic
(many voices) compositions, such as the one employed by the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle.