Women, Gender, and the Kirk Before the Covenant

Abstract

This article explores the ways women interacted with the Scottish kirk in the decades prior to the National Covenant of 1638, mainly focusing on urban areas especially Edinburgh and environs. The written records, especially those of the kirk session, are skewed toward punishing women who engaged in sin, especially sexual sins such as adultery and fornication. Indeed, these records show that while women’s behavior and speech was highly restricted and women were punished more frequently than men for their sexual behavior or for speaking out of turn, there were moments when women had a significant public voice, albeit one that was highly restricted and required male sanctioning. For example, women were often called on to testify before kirk sessions against those who had committed sins, even if the accused sinners were male or social superiors or both. Perhaps the most important moment where women used their male-sanctioned voice to speak out in public came at the Edinburgh Prayer Book Riots of 1637, which was led by women. This article argues that women were given the opportunity to act in public because the church had been characterized by many Scottish male preachers in gendered language – they called the church a “harlot mother” and a “whore” that needed correction. Therefore, the women of the Prayer Book Riot were sanctioned to speak out against a licentious sinner, much in the way women were called on to testify against sinners in front of kirk sessions.