Professor Jane Dawson (BA PhD Dip Ed FRHS FSA (Scot) FRSE)
Professor Emerita of Reformation History
Address
- Street
-
c/o School of Divinity, Mound Place
- City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH1 2LX
Availability
Now I am retired the best method to contact me is via email.
Background
I am an early modern historian who is primarily interested in the four countries within the British Isles, Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales, and in the Protestant Reformation. In retirement I am concentrating upon Scottish history.
Qualifications
BA PhD Dip Ed FRHS FSA (Scot) FRSE
Research summary
My own research interests are varied. For a number of years I worked on British history, specialising in Scottish topics, and then returned to the Reformation in Scotland and throughout the British Isles and Europe. I have been particularly interested in the creation of religious culture and in communication via images, song, material culture and the written and printed word.
Work on Scotland and the Highlands resulted in two editions of manuscript letters Clan Campbell Letters, 1559-1583; Breadalbane Letters 1548-83 and a monograph on the head of the Campbells, the fifth earl of Argyll Politics of Religion in the age of Mary, Queen of Scots. A general history of Scotland during the long sixteenth century, Scotland Re-formed, 1488-1587 was published as Volume 6 of the New Edinburgh History of Scotland.
My biography of John Knox was published in 2015 & 2016.
A range of Scottish research sources have already been placed online as has newly-discovered material relating to the Marian exile (1553-9).
Jane Dawson Scottish Research Sources
Religion in Late Medieval Scotland
Current research interests
I am now researching Annas Keith, Countess of Moray and Argyll [d.1588].Project activity
I was Principal Investigator for the AHRC-funded Wode Psalter Project (2009-11) that brought together a team from the University Library, Music and Divinity in Edinburgh with the British Library, Trinity College, Dublin and Georgetown University, Washington DC, and a network of scholars throughout the world.
The project mounted a major exhibition in Edinburgh 'Singing the Reformation' (Aug-Oct 2011) and travelling exhibitions to Dundee and Belfast. It gave a series of concerts and a new CD The Wode Collection has been produced. An Iphone App is freely available as is the exhibition's booklet.
I was Co-Investigator for the Sing the Renaissance and Reformation (2012-13), a follow-on project involving the Wode Partbooks. This has provided modern performing editions of the Wode material for choirs in a free downloadable format.
Details of both projects and their products can be found on the Wode Psalter website.
A related project Singing the Reformation 2016 investigated the experience of singing and worship in Scotland c1600.
'John Knox and the Scottish Reformation' in A Companion to the Reformation in Scotland ca. 1525-1638 ed. William Ian P Hazlett, (Brill, Leiden, 2022) 105-127
'Afterword' in The Clergy in early modern Scotland eds Chris Langley, Catherine McMillan & Russell Newton (St Andrews Studies in Scottish History) (Boydell, Woodbridge, 2021) 225-235
'John Knox and John Calvin' in Oxford Handbook of Calvinism eds. Bruce Gordon & Carl Trueman (OUP, Oxford, 2021)155-166
'Covenanting in sixteenth-century Scotland' Scottish Historical Review ed Neil McIntyre Dec 2020 XCIX Supplement No. 251 336- 348
Music and the Reformation: The Perspective from Govan 2020 (Friends of Govan Old Glasgow 2020)
'Introduction' in Death in Scotland: Chapters from the twelfth century to the twenty-first eds. Peter Jupp & Hilary Grainger (Peter Lang, Oxford, 2019) 1-9.
‘Satan’s bludy clawses’: How religious persecution, exile and radicalization moulded British Protestant identities in Scottish Journal of Theology 2018 71, 3, 267-286
‘The Word did everything’: Readers, Singers and the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, c1560-1638 Records of the Scottish Church History Society 2018 46, 1-37