Profane Pastimes and the Reformed Community: The Persistence of Popular Festivities in Early Modern Scotland

Abstract

The Reformed Kirk of Scotland has a reputation for vigorous repression of festivity hardly to be surpassed by any other Protestant church. From 1560 on, the authorities of the kirk from local session to General Assembly waged a stern and unremitting campaign against the celebration of Yule, Easter, May Day, Midsummer, and saints' days; against feasting, whether at marriages or wakes; against Sunday sports and dancing and guising—in short, against anything that might distract newly Reformed laity from the central Protestant focus on the sermon, the Bible, and the godly life of moral discipline and prayer. Their goals were both negative and positive. They were intent on quashing popish superstition in part because they were convinced that its persistence helped to explain the recurrence of plague, famine, and other divine judgments on the land. In a more positive sense, they were trying to clear the way for construction of a new vision of the good life—one that exalted word over image and discipline over ritual, and in which community cohesion was achieved by a shared Protestant identity and the common goal of a devout and orderly society. Modern observers generally credit their campaign with remarkable success; certainly the popular image of Scotland after the Reformation is grim and joyless—and with some reason. Days of fasting and humiliation under presbyterian rule came close to outnumbering the old saints' days, and they vastly outnumbered new days of thanksgiving. Official policy on the matter of festivity was exemplary for a Reformed nation.