Civility and Godly Society: Scotland 1550-1672

Abstract

This thesis aims to answer the following question – What was the significance of civility in a Calvinist ‘godly society’? Historians have identified a growing concern with civil behaviour as one of the defining characteristics of early modern Europe. Works on religion and civility have mainly claimed that Protestant religious leaders endorsed civility uncritically. In Scotland, however, where Calvinism governed church and kingdom, the ideas of godliness and godly society dominated the concerns of parliament and the kirk sessions (church discipline) when they discussed the government of social behaviour. Civility held some place in the thinking of James VI and in some kirk session records from the 1640s. Nevertheless, it mattered less than ‘godly society’ and concerns over unchristian behaviour. Moreover, the clergy, in particular, had a somewhat sceptical view of the motivations people had for displaying civil behaviour.