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This thesis traces the establishment and development of a functioning reformed church in the parishes of Fife after the official Reformation of 1560. Based principally on archival sources, especially the records of the kirk sessions which governed the church at parish level, it examines how ecclesiastical institutions developed and interacted with laypeople, and evaluates the progress made in the challenging task of inculcating Protestant values and identity in Fife’s parishioners. The first section examines the development of the reformed church in three chapters on the parish ministry, church discipline, and reformed worship respectively. The progress made in providing parish ministers and establishing kirk sessions was hesitant, and it took several decades before the church’s institutions were functioning healthily across Fife. This gradual process of reformation was not what the original reformers wanted, but it may have in fact eased the transition to the more firmly Protestant parish culture that emerged around the turn of the century. The second section looks more thematically at three key aspects of the church, focusing mainly on this latter period. The fourth chapter analyses the ministry as a profession, while the fifth chapter goes on to discuss the efforts made to instruct the laity in more detailed Protestant understandings from the 1590s onwards. The sixth and final chapter returns to the subject of discipline, describing the main targets of the disciplinary regime and evaluating the effectiveness of discipline. The church that emerged in the seventeenth century was relatively healthy, staffed by a stable and well-educated ministry, and was starting to make much stronger efforts to educate and discipline the laypeople of Fife. The thesis concludes that while the Scottish Reformation still emerges as an ultimately successful transformation, the path to religious change was more complicated than has been appreciated by historians.

This thesis examines the appointment of the Commissaries of Edinburgh, the court over which they presided, and their consistorial jurisdiction during the era of the Scottish Reformation. It is argued that the Commissaries of Edinburgh were appointed by Mary, Queen of Scots, in February 1563/4 as a temporary measure following the suppression of the courts of the Catholic Church in Scotland during the Wars of the Congregation. The Commissaries’ jurisdiction was substantially that of the pre-Reformation Officials centralized into a national jurisdiction administered from Edinburgh. The Commissaries of Edinburgh’s jurisdictional relations with the inferior Commissaries, the Lords of Council and Session, the suppressed courts of the Catholic Church and the Lords Interpreters of the Law of Oblivion are examined, whilst their relations with the tribunals of the Protestant Kirk are given particular attention. The thesis argues that despite the complex constitutional, legal and religious legacy of the spiritual jurisdiction in Scotland, the Commissaries and Kirk achieved a high degree of jurisdictional harmony, despite occasional conflicts. The Commissaries continued to administer the Canon law of the medieval Church in consistorial matters, with the prominent exception of the innovation introduced into Scotland by the Protestant Kirk from 1559 concerning divorce and remarriage on the grounds of adultery. Through an analysis of sentences and decreets pronounced by pre-Reformation Officials, the Commissaries of Edinburgh, and the tribunals of the Protestant Kirk, it is argued that this reform was essentially a reform of divorce a mensa et thoro using concepts and formulas borrowed from pre- Reformation sentences of annulment. The result was a type of divorce unique to Scotland, where the innocent party was immediately freed to remarry, whilst the guilty party remained bound to the failed marriage until freed to remarry by the death of their innocent spouse. An analysis of consistorial litigation before the Commissaries of Edinburgh is used to explain and illustrate the Romano-canonical procedure used in their court and the documentation generated during litigation. Litigants’ gender, domicile and social status are also analysed, together with their use of procurators and the expenses incurred during litigation.

This thesis examines the transformation of the clergy in the late sixteenth century Scotland in which ministerial training had a crucial role to play both in the academia and in the Kirk. In order to demonstrate this transformation attention will be focused on the training of ministers at the Town College, Edinburgh and then following the unfolding of their ecclesiastical career including the ‘exercise’. The foundation of the ‘Tounis College’ in Edinburgh is placed within the broader context of the expansion of higher education throughout Europe. A college project had been in the mind of the Edinburgh Town Council since 1561 and had been resurrected from time to time until its final realisation in 1583. The newly-erected college was headed by Robert Rollock, a young and ambitious scholar from St Andrews, who was first the Professor of Divinity and then the Principal. Under his leadership both as a theologian and a churchman the institution became a place of higher learning that shaped the development of the different Scottish professions in general and the transformation and the emergence of the protestant clergy as a new professional elite, in particular. This thesis also provides a detailed analysis on the early career patterns of the College’s ministerial graduates by examining a) their family background, especially those who came from clerical families b) their way into ministry in the Kirk including the “gap-years” spent in another professions or elsewhere upon graduation c) their dissemination through central Scotland. Particular attention is given to the role of the ‘exercise’, as one of the most important functions of the presbytery, in examining and admitting candidates to their charges as well as providing other presbytery members with further training in preaching and theology.

The Book of Psalms has occupied a privileged place in Christianity from its earliest years, but it was not until the sixteenth century that metrical versifications of the Psalms became popular. Because of the notable influence of Martin Luther and John Calvin, the musical phenomenon of metrical psalm singing spread throughout Protestant circles on the European mainland and in Britain. These versifications knew no boundaries among Protestants: reformers and parishioners, kings and laypeople, men and women, young and old memorised and sang the metrical psalms. In England and Scotland, the versifications written by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins became the most popular, as editions of these texts were printed in England from 1549 to 1828. The present study considers these metrical versifications and their melodies as they were printed and performed in England and Scotland from their inception until the final Scottish edition appeared in 1640. In particular, this study asserts that the years from 1560 to 1640 saw the development and reinforcement of two distinct ecclesiastical psalm cultures, one in England and the other in Scotland. Though based on a common foundation in the Sternhold and Hopkins texts, English and Scottish metrical psalmody preserved their distinct natures. However, both traditions also influenced their counterparts. The present study considers these cross‐influences and their effect on the tensions between conformity with foreign influences and fidelity to established practice in both countries. This study finally seeks to fill two significant gaps in current scholarship. It first compares the developments in English and Scottish metrical psalmody in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Secondly, it considers the relationships between psalm tunes and their texts, with a closer musical analysis of the tunes than has previously been attempted.

Early modern Scotland was a religious society where the doctrine of Calvinism permeated everyday life in the localities through the official regulation of personal behaviour. Recent historical studies have debated the nature and experience of social control in Scotland between 1560 and 1780, including the importance and influence of gender, geographic location and social status. Where such studies have traditionally focussed on kirk session minutes as a lone source, the thesis engages with this debate by employing an ‘all courts’ approach to examine social control, family structures and interpersonal relationships. In doing so, it departs from the binary division of gender and contributes to a wider thematic historiography involving patriarchy, family and household that is present in contemporary English and Continental scholarship. In Scotland, although the period between 1560 and 1640 has received attention from historians, there is no focussed study of these themes for the period between 1610 and 1640. The thesis employs evidence from secular and ecclesiastical court records drawn from ten parishes across East Lothian to analyse the structure of the operational court system in Haddingtonshire and to examine social control and notions of honour and shame. Focus is given to how these two concepts interacted with popular experiences of household life, sexual relationships, violent actions and violent words. Its central argument is that, between 1610 and 1640, there was a localised experience of social control and authority in East Lothian, which was administered through an integrated justice network of civil and ecclesiastical courts that was influenced by gender roles, ideas of patriarchy and the importance of social status.

The thesis comprises two parts: the first examines German Reformation dialogues from the period 1520 to 1525 in a general study; the second discusses six texts in detail. The introduction deals with the literary tradition of dialogue, with the place of Reformation dialogues among other contemporary forms of literature, with the rapid growth of printing and the output of polemical pamphlets, and with present-day evaluations of both German Reformation dialogues and the society which produced them. As most dialogues were published anonymously, the question of authorship is treated. The authors' aims, views and loyalties coincide in some instances and display dissimilarities in others. The broad anticlerical movement encompasses a variety of different shades of opinion. Common characteristics in the way polemical dialogues were written are determined, and variations noted. The 'common man' appears both as a frequent interlocutor in dialogues and as a recurrent topic of debate. It is the conduct and the role of the Roman church, however, which represents the predominant concerns of the dialogue-authors. The possibility that the 'common man' protagonist influenced the way in which commoners saw themselves and were seen by other social groups is examined, as is the possible effect of the literary 'common man' on social unrest among the contemporary lower classes. Part I concludes that there is no evidence to show that German Reformation dialogues played any direct or even indirect role in inciting rebellion. It is, moreover, doubtful whether significant numbers of the actual insurgents were influenced by or even familiar with the German Reformation dialogues. The pamphlets were primarily for the literate classes, the educated and semieducated. The dialogues studied in detail in Part II are Karsthans, Pfarrer und Schultheiß, Kunz und Fritz, Chorherr und Schuhmacher, Bauer, Belial, Erasmus und Dr. Faber, and Muntzerischer Schwarmer und evangelischer Bauer. This choice reflects the changing preoccupations of the authors from the beginning to the end of a singularly formative period in German history. This study aims to ascertain the particular concerns of each author and the manner in which he has sought to present them to the reader.

This thesis argues that Luther’s reaction to Pelagianism within the Scotist tradition led to a decisive break with the scholastic theology of free will, merit and the Mass. However, by identifying the theological crux of Luther’s Reformation, this thesis discovers a rapprochement in the free will theology of early Lutheranism and Counter-Reformation scholasticism. The case is made that Luther’s theology of the passivity of the human will calls for a recovery of the Reformation significance of Luther’s relation to scholasticism and provides the means for recovery in ecumenical dialogue today. The thesis is presented in three parts. The first locates the origins of Luther’s Reformation reaction to Pelagianism in the Scotist developments of free will, merit and the Mass from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Chapter One argues that Scotus’s view of free will as autonomous volition had Pelagian repercussions on his teaching on merit. Chapter Two finds that Luther’s charge of Pelagianism could similarly be applied to Scotus’s theology of Eucharistic sacrifice, because the human will rather than Christ’s cross is deemed by Scotus to be the source of merit in the Mass. Chapter Three examines the continued influence of Scotus’s free will theology on the fifteenth-century debates concerning predestination. Scotus’s free will legacy in these debates, gives historical justification for positing a connection between Scotus and Luther’s denunciation of the Mass as a Pelagian work. Part Two argues that Luther’s theology of the passivity of the human will and the Mass as a testament constitutes a Reformation break with scholastic understandings of the meritorious agency of the human will. Chapter Four locates Luther’s Reformation relation to the voluntarism of Ockham and Biel, the German mystical tradition, and his confessor Staupitz, in his denial that the human will attains a meritorious agency under grace. Chapter Five maintains that Luther’s theology of the Mass as a testament reflects his rejection of Pelagianism and his Reformation article of passivity. In consequence, Luther’s testament model is shown to be incompatible with Cajetan’s non-Pelagian theology of the merit of the sacrifice of the Mass. Part Three affirms that Luther’s belief in the passivity of the human will has Reformation significance, by examining the condemnations of Trent. However, by considering subsequent treatments on free will, it is possible to identify a convergence in late sixteenth-century Lutheran and Catholic theology. Chapter Six argues that Trent countered both the Scotist theory of merit and Luther’s theology of the passivity of the human will. Luther’s belief in passivity is shown to cause a Reformation rift in a way that the Scotist reformulation of free will does not, because it led Luther to renounce the meritorious offering of Masses. Chapter Seven shows that in the wake of the Majorist, Synergist and Flacian debates of early Lutheranism and the Catholic de auxiliis controversy, a parallel understanding of the free will to sin can be discerned. The Lutheran Formula of Concord (1577) relinquished Luther’s Reformation article of passivity and offered a position which was in unconscious agreement with Trent. The thesis concludes by applying the results of this historical study to key ecumenical documents on the Mass. It is suggested that the rediscovery of a historical consensus on free will, opens the door to a common understanding of merit as participation in Christ, and thus to a shared Lutheran and Catholic understanding of Eucharistic sacrifice.

Magister Legum - LLM / This thesis investigates the possibility of relaxing the privity principle of contract to accommodate the interests of third parties in South Africa. It explores concepts relating to the doctrine of privity as well as the two legs that constitute this common law doctrine. It will draw lessons from the English legal system because English law of contract managed to reform the doctrine of privity in order to accommodate the interests of third parties to a contract. While this thesis is not a comparative study of England and South Africa, it will draw substantially from lessons that can be taken from England with regard to abrogating the privity principle of contract. England has been chosen as the point of reference because there has not yet been any other African country that has reformed this privity principle of the common law of contract in order to accommodate the interests of third parties.