Discipline and Domestic Violence in Edinburgh, 1560–1625

Abstract

As no Citie, Towne, howse, or familie can maynteine their estate and prospere without policie and governaunce, so the Churche of God, which more purely to be governed than any citie or familie, can not without spirituali Policie and ecclesiasticall Discipline continewe, encrease and florishe. [sic]The form of prayers and ministration of the sacraments, &c, used in the English congregation at Geneva, 1556.In June 1620 George Johnsoun was ‘scharplie rebukit for his hynous sin of disobediens to his parents in stryking of his mother’ and imprisoned for one week whilst the Session of St Cuthbert’s parish, Edinburgh, decided how to deal with him. The following week the Session ordained ‘george Johnsoun to ga to his parents everie mornyng and evening upoun his kneis and promeis with his grace never to do ye lyk in tymes cumyng’. The Session elders seem to have been aware both of the menace that George represented to his parents, his mother in particular, and of the extent to which he had become a disorderly troublemaker. They therefore required him to ‘[promise] to tak ane office man [with] him quher he so gets yair blissin’. The Session could thus monitor George’s behaviour and the fervency of his repentance, and guarantee that discipline was properly enacted. With this punishment the Kirk sent a clear message to the parishioners of St Cuthbert’s, and the whole Edinburgh Presbytery, that disobedience and disorder in the domestic sphere were entirely unacceptable. Perhaps more significantly, in this case the parish authorities publicly and explicitly declared and demonstrated that violence against domestic authority, particularly against one’s mother, was insupportable.