Kirk Discipline and Roman Catholicism in Early Modern Scotland (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781399552370)

This book analyses the Scottish kirk's use of public shame to persecute the kingdom's Catholic minority. In early modern Scotland, where the national church mandated that a specially constructed stool of repentance be placed directly in front of every minister's pulpit, the dreadful spectacle of public penance was a routine feature of parish life. The book examines this process of ritualised shame.

Drawing on recent advances in the study of kirk discipline, underground Catholicism and the history of emotion, it unsettles understandings of religious persecution. Ryan Burns analyses the psychological pressure inflicted on religious dissidents, some of whom attempted suicide rather than submit to the repentance stool. The book examines the spectacle of public penance, as well as the Presbyterian kirk's often creative means of inducing humiliation.

Author: Ryan Burns
ISBN-10: 1399552376
ISBN-13: 9781399552370
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Language: English
Published: 10/31/2025
Pages: 232
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.11lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.56d