Jesuits and Catholic reform in Scotland before 1560

Abstract

This article uses evidence from the first Scottish Jesuits, sixteenth-century Scottish Catholic reformers, the use of the Quiñones breviary, a fireplace in Ballindalloch and the first Jesuit mission to Scotland in 1541–42 to argue that the early Jesuits had a greater influence on Scottish Catholic religion and spirituality in the mid-sixteenth century than has previously been noticed. It also suggests that the idea that the Scottish Protestant coup of 1559–60 was ‘the Scottish Reformation’ is profoundly confusing and that the presence of Jesuits, the use of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola and the implementation of the decrees of Trent in the Kingdom of Scotland before 1560 is not a ‘Counter-Reformation before the Reformation’ but just part of a series of movements of Catholic Reform that defined the Scottish Church in the century before the later missions of the Scottish Jesuits in 1578–1581.