Michelle Brock
Grant Proposal Draft
August 31, 2009
"The Fiend in the Fog: a History of Satan in Early Modern Scotland"
My dissertation project explores how fear and the depiction of evil can shape a society in
profound ways. To early modern Scots, the devil embodied the source of all evil. As the cause of
suffering in this world and the next, Satan threatened the very lifeblood of Christian existence—
faith and accord with God. This project analyzes perceptions of the devil in early modern
Scotland, the formation of Scottish demonology in an international Calvinist context, and the
influence of demonic belief on early modern life. Belief in Satan deeply influenced the lives of
all Scottish men and women. Over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these
Scots actively participated in the cross-fertilization of medieval and Reformed demonic ideas,
which resulted in a multifarious but shared religious landscape. I will investigate how this
blending of belief occurred, seeking out the wide variety of voices that contributed to the
formation of a post-Reformation Scottish demonology. Ultimately, my dissertation will reveal
the cultural dialogue about the devil that gave early modern Scots a negative referent by which to
understand both individual identities and communal definitions of morality.
Demonology—the study of the devil and demons—was a pressing matter in the years
following the Scottish Reformation, as the introduction and adoption of Calvinism necessitated a
re-evaluation of Satan’s role in the world. Demonological ideas were multi-dimensional and
dynamic, involving a wide spectrum of questions regarding the nature of Satan, including the
extent of his powers, the activities of his lesser demons, his relationship to God and man, his role
during the Last Days, and his place in the broader history of mankind. Most importantly,
demonology was concerned with the involvement of Satan in human affairs, asking how the
Christian world ought to respond to earthly demonic presence—an especially urgent question
during a time when the apocalypse seemed imminent. Unlike previous scholarship, I do not
consider demonology solely within the bounds of theological discourse or exclusively as a highculture phenomenon. While examining the demonic belief of Scottish theologians is crucial to
my project, these elite voices tell only a part of the story. Demonology, as I understand it, must
be viewed as the constant project of all Scotsmen, whose lived experiences shaped their demonic
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belief and compelled them to evaluate their role in a world polarized between the forces of good
and evil. Thus, I consider any description of demonic belief, from a farmer’s explanation of crop
failure to King James VI’s Daemonologie, as contributing to demonology. By investigating how
Scots of all sorts perceived and responded to Satan in their daily lives, my project will
demonstrate how demonic belief contributed to a fluid, dynamic, and shared religious culture in
early modern Scotland.
I begin in 1560 when the coming of the Reformation to Scotland ushered in new ideas
about the nature of the devil. The introduction of John Calvin’s demonology to Scotland by the
Scottish clergy, guided by the doctrines of sola scriptura, double predestination, and the
sovereignty of God, led to a reworking of pre-Reformation demonic belief. This heightened
awareness among ordinary Protestants of Satan’s involvement in the world and their Christian
duty to war with him. For many early modern men and women, the last days seemed imminent,
and Satan was an omnipresent figure who represented God’s rightful wrath towards man. Even
after witchcraft trials ended around the beginning of the eighteenth century, demonic belief
persisted in Scotland, indicating that demonology had become deeply embedded in its people’s
cultural worldviews over the course of the early modern period.
A set of preliminary questions guide my research: What did people in early modern
Scotland believe about the devil and his wordly involvement in the years following the Scottish
Reformation? What were the origins of and influences on this demonic belief, from Scotland’s
medieval past and from the new Reformed theology, as well as from Britain, Europe and the
Atlantic world? How did these diverse influences on demonic belief inform a distinctly Scottish
demonology? Finally, how did belief in an irreconcilable conflict between the forces of good and
evil actually shape daily life in early modern Scotland?
Why Scotland?
Studying perceptions of Satan in early modern Scotland is particularly illuminating for
three primary reasons. First, the demonic elements that encouraged the intensity of the Scottish
witch-hunts are well known, yet Scottish demonology has not received similar attention. A
comprehensive study of why demonic belief was so pervasive in Scotland will clarify much
about the complex environments that fostered panics over witchcraft throughout Europe. Second,
Scotland became one of the most thoroughly Calvinist areas in Europe by the end of the
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sixteenth century. As such, studying demonology in Scotland displays how Calvinism
specifically affected belief in the devil and, more generally, how Calvinist ideas were adopted
and adapted in distinct environments. Last, and most significant, Scotland provides a unique
opportunity to examine the convergence of British, European, and Atlantic religious influences.
Events in the British Isles were central to the Scottish story due to centuries of close, and often
contentious interaction with England and a common Celtic heritage shared with Ireland and
Wales. In addition, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Scotland maintained extensive
political and cultural interactions with their “Auld Alliance” France, as well as the Netherlands
and Scandinavia; in fact, it could be argued that, in these years, Scotland had more in common
with Europe than with England. Over the course of the seventeenth century, Scotland had also
become an important part of a larger Atlantic community owing to patterns of trade,
colonization, and cultural exchange. Scotland’s involvement in these three separate but
interconnected contexts necessitates an examination of how British, European, and Atlantic
religious currents altered the orientation of demonic belief there while simultaneously
developing a demonology that was distinctly Scottish. My discussion of Scottish demonology
will not only write Scotland into the early modern story, but also illustrate how localized studies
allow historians to cultivate a nuanced sense of how and why the devil came to be at the center
of early modern life.
Historiographical Contribution:
My project makes an original contribution to the historiography of early modern Europe
in multiple ways. First, I go beyond an assessment of witch-belief, the only context in which
Scottish and, with a few notable exceptions, English and continental demonologies have been
fully addressed. While demonic belief is considered within the framework of Scottish witchcraft
in works such as Brian Levack’s Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Scotland: Law, Politics and
Religion and Julian Goodare’s Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland, the specific
development and character of demonology in early modern Scotland has yet to be studied.
Second, though Calvinism has a long and rich historiography, no study has thoroughly explored
John Calvin’s demonology and how Calvinist conceptions of the devil were disseminated and
received within a particular society. By looking at Scottish demonology in relation to the
demonic belief in British, European and Atlantic Calvinist areas, my project will provide an
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analytical study of how theological ideas were shaped by specific societies and cultures in the
early modern world. Last, and most crucial, while demons have recently come to the forefront of
early modern historiography in studies such as Stuart Clark’s seminal Thinking with Demons,
these studies have considered demonology as exclusively a high-culture phenomenon, with the
notable exception of Fernando Cervantes’s investigation of demonic belief in New Spain.
Specifically, Clark’s work is primarily concerned with demons in the context of clerical witchbelief. Building upon Clark’s methodological foundation, my dissertation will use Scotland as a
case study to demonstrate that demonology was not an exclusively clerical or intellectual
concern, but rather a universal preoccupation influencing many facets of life for early modern
persons of all kinds.
Method and Sources:
It is essential to take early modern belief seriously in its own context so as to avoid
anachronistic assumptions about rationality or validity of belief. That the devil may or may not
exist has no relevance to this study; rather, what matters is that for early modern Scots, the devil
as an undeniable presence in their lives. To assess demonic belief across the spectrum of Scottish
society, I will investigate a variety of archival and printed sources, including sermons, the
Woodrow manuscripts, court cases (primarily witchcraft trials), Kirk session and presbytery
records, Privy Council records, popular literature, personal letters and diaries, wills and probate
inventories, and churchwarden’s accounts. My method will entail a close reading of a variety of
texts with attention to the voices and circumstances which produced them.
My dissertation will also demonstrate that demonology, and theology more broadly, must
not be seen as solely the intellectual, theoretical concern of theologians. I contend that the
bipartite model of demonological thought obscures the shared religious culture of early modern
Scotland, and of Europe more broadly; to fully understand demonic belief, the simplistic and
misleading categories of “popular” and “elite” must be abandoned. By viewing Scottish
demonology as an inclusive cultural project rather than a strictly theological endeavor, my
project will illuminate the universality and import of Satan in the early modern world. Perhaps
by understanding the devil’s place in our cultural past, we will better be able to comprehend the
power of perceptions of evil to affect our present.
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