The notion that early modern Scotland was an intellectual and cultural backwater has long influenced scholarship. Recently, Giovanni Gellera, Alasdair Raffe, and Steven Reid have challenged this conclusion to show that Scots in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contributed to and engaged considerably with contemporary philosophical and theological trends. Sebastiaan Verweij makes a significant contribution to this scholarly movement by illuminating the vibrant manuscript literary culture that flourished in Scotland between the reformation of 1560 and the death of James VI in 1625. Verweij dismisses the idea that Jacobean Scotland could be characterized by its cultural bleakness. On the contrary, literary pursuit and manuscript transmission were lively and extensive, demonstrating both the vitality and distinctiveness of early modern Scottish literary culture.
Verweij employs a conceptual framework that investigates three places of manuscript production and consumption: the royal court, the urban center, and the regional locale. These sites provide the book with its structure, with three chapters devoted to courtly manuscript culture, followed by two chapters on urban literary pursuit, and two on regional centers, often aristocratic provincial homes. This framework also underscores the distinctiveness of early modern Scottish literary culture. Whereas vernacular manuscript production and exchange in England were based in the universities, Inns of Court, and theaters, Scotland's universities did not feature as hubs of manuscript transmission, while the kingdom lacked legal schools and theaters. When compared with England, the unique environments that cultivated literary production in Scotland highlight the diversity of literary cultures in early modern Britain.
Though Verweij foregrounds the tripartite division of Scottish literary culture by place, these sites nevertheless overlapped. Though the pre-1603 Scottish court can best be described as itinerant, the Edinburgh court was undeniably an “urban court,” as its boundaries meshed with the civic environ. The poetry of Alexander Montgomerie (ca. 1550–98) is illustrative of this intermixing. After the king, Montgomerie was the most influential courtly poet, but Verweij proves that his poetry also had an urban audience because it is found in a verse miscellany (Edinburgh University Library, MS Laing 3.447) that was compiled by Edinburgh burgesses. Additionally, by tracking the scribal copying of James VI's poetry, Verweij establishes a wider courtly and noncourtly readership of the king's verses, thus arguing that the court was not an insular community, but a dynamic center of literary and cultural exchange.
Verweij makes extensive use of several well-known manuscript anthologies, including the Bannatyne manuscript (National Library of Scotland [NLS], Edinburgh, Adv. MS 1.1.6) and the Maitland quarto and folio manuscripts (Pepys Library, Cambridge, MSS 1408 and 2553). But one of this study's strengths is the author's engagement with lesser-known sources. In chapter 3, for instance, Verweij scrutinizes the construction and contents of the Hawthornden papers (NLS, MSS 2053–67) not only to examine the poetical output of William Fowler, one of the “quintessential” writers of the Jacobean court, but also to both illuminate the scope and extent of courtly textual communities and uncover the names of the largely forgotten individuals who participated in these communities. Elsewhere, in chapter 7, Verweij analyzes two underutilized miscellanies (NLS, MS 15937 and Cambridge University Library, MS Kk.5.30) belonging to two Perthshire aristocratic families, the Murrays of Tibbermuir and Robertsons of Lude, to underscore the cultural activity that occurred in the provinces. The manuscripts provide stark evidence of lyrical procreation, the recreation of popular Anglo-Scots verses, and literary exchange and circulation between provincial families. They are key examples of localized yet flourishing literary cultures among minor Scottish aristocratic families far removed from the Edinburgh and London cultural centers.
It is now clear that early modern Scotland possessed a distinctive literary culture that traversed social and geographic boundaries. Moreover, Verweij is indefatigable in his assertion that this study is just the beginning. Indeed, he has mastered a great deal of primary and secondary material, making this book useful to both the neophyte and the expert. But it is the author's call for further research, and specific suggestions for avenues of additional inquiry, that makes this book even more valuable. Verweij's study will, hopefully, provide an impetus for scholars wishing to expand our understanding of the textual, geographic, and linguistic aspects of early modern Scotland's literary culture.
