Introduction
Mariah Hudec and Sierra Dye
As both a scholar and a mentor, Professor Elizabeth Ewan has profoundly influenced the field of Scottish Studies, both at the University of Guelph and beyond. As a researcher whose career has spanned over three decades, her impact has been both monumental and far-reaching. Elizabeth Ewan has written on subjects as diverse as urban history, law and crime, domestic economies and Scottish households, ale-brewing, Scottish literature, and more.[1] However, scholars of medieval and early modern Scotland are particularly indebted to the work that she has put into excavating the lives and histories of ordinary Scots, particularly women and children, and into redefining the way that historians approach and understand gender within a Scottish context.[2] Monographs, edited collections, and collaborations such as Townlife in Fourteenth-Century Scotland; Women in Scotland, c. 1100–1700; The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women and The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women; Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland; and Nine Centuries of Man: Manhood and Masculinity in Scottish History (to name just a few) not only demonstrate the breadth and reach of Professor Ewan’s personal scholarship and influence, but also her incredible perspicacity as an editor, advisor, and guiding light within the field of Scottish Studies.[3]
It is in this latter role—as a mentor, an advisor, and a collaborator—that this volume seeks to celebrate. Throughout her career, Elizabeth Ewan has, and continues to, inspire a global community, from colleagues, students, and researchers to members of the public whose interest in Scotland often stems from personal or familial ties to the country. Just as her own research has fruitfully explored a wide variety of subjects, she has also expertly supervised dozens of graduate students whose work encompasses an array of historical topics and across Scottish Studies more broadly. As with the very best of friends and mentors, Professor Ewan’s generosity, kindness, and constant encouragement know no bounds. From arranging meetings in Edinburgh for tea and soup, to organizing house-shares in Canada and Edinburgh, to long talks on international calls with prospective graduate students, Professor Ewan has quietly and conscientiously touched the lives and careers of many. This encouragement and support of others has contributed to the development of an extensive network of scholars across North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. Professor Ewan’s students have gone on to work in a multitude of fields both within and outwith academia and include independent historians and consultants, librarians and archivists, museum administrators, and editors and publishers, as well as tenured faculty, university administrators, policymakers, and more.
As such, the Centre for Scottish Studies dedicates this fifth and final volume of its Guelph Series in Scottish Studies to honour her long service to the University of Guelph, where she has spent many years as a professor of history, research chair, and lynchpin of the Centre for Scottish Studies. This collection focuses on Elizabeth Ewan’s impacts as a researcher and educator as told through the voices of her current and former colleagues, mentees, students, co-editors, and friends. As so much of her work as a scholar and supervisor has been to develop and expand the ever-growing and intersecting networks of scholarly contacts in Scottish Studies, it seems only fitting that the central theme of this festschrift should be that of networks and networking in medieval and early modern Scotland and beyond. Knowingly or unknowingly, Professor Ewan sits at the hub of a vast network of researchers and scholars, many of whom are indebted to her in some way for career advice, a contact introduction, or simply an enthusiastic or sympathetic ear. It should be no surprise, then, that many of her current and former colleagues and students have jumped at the chance to honour her legacy. In fact, this current volume is one of two festschrifts published this year in her honour. The second, Gender in Scotland, 1200–1800: Place, Faith and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), celebrates Professor Ewan’s achievements and influence on the development of gender history as a discipline in medieval and early modern Scotland.[4] While Professor Ewan’s impact on the field of women’s and gender history in Scotland cannot be overstated, her influence and interests extend in many directions, which the present volume seeks to honour. The diversity of topics across these two collections is a stark reminder of the breadth and depth of her impact as a researcher and mentor, as well as her considerable networks within the field of Scottish Studies.
The chapters of the current collection are connected through the theme of networks, broadly defined. Roughly arranged in chronological order, they cover a wide range of types of networks, including geographic, urban, economic, kinship, friendship, legal, and communication networks. In this volume, we include research from writers from different career stages and who have taken a variety of career paths. We have consciously chosen to include not only those with impressive and established academic careers, but also early-career scholars, graduate students, and those who have chosen alternative career paths. The diversity of this collection speaks to Professor Ewan’s profound and prolonged influence over the course of her career. This volume is also published in an open-access format, housed through the Pressbooks platform, reflecting her commitment to making research widely accessible.[5]
One common theme of the volume is, of course, women and gender. In the opening chapter, “‘She was the cause of the collapse of the entire Kingdom of the Isles’: Women, Reproductive Politics, and the Construction of History in the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles,” R. Andrew McDonald examines the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles (compiled 1257, also known as the Manx Chronicle) to explore beyond male-dominated power structures to reveal important relationships between women and power. While only a few named women appear in the manuscript, McDonald highlights the key role of women not only as wives and mothers, but also as inciters of action. Interestingly, McDonald explores the silences within the manuscript to suggest that unnamed women also played important roles—and that, in fact, they may have been unnamed as a way of destroying or diminishing their reputations.
Kathryn M. Comper also examines the roles of aristocratic or noble women in “‘I do whats in my pouer for them all’: Noblewomen, Kinship Networks, and Power in Seventeenth-Century Scotland.” Comper focuses on the correspondence of Lady Anna MacKenzie, examining the advice that elite women shared with their sons in the tumultuous decades of the second half of the seventeenth century. During this period of uncertainty, Comper suggests that social and kinship networks were crucial for those seeking new positions, as well as those clinging to precarious titles already held by their families, and highlights the key role that women played as letter-writers in leveraging these networks for the benefit of their families. Like McDonald and others in this volume, Comper emphasizes stylistic and linguistic markers to read between the lines of these sources and explores how women used these networks to create security for themselves and their families, forming another core theme to this volume.
In “Keeping It in the Family: Women, Kinship, and Violence in Scotland, 1493–1558,” Chelsea Larsson likewise focuses on themes of women, family, and kinship, this time in the context of law, violence, and crime—topics Elizabeth Ewan has written on extensively. Focusing on cases of lethal or near-lethal violence perpetrated by or against women in Scotland’s central Justiciary Court, Larsson suggests that status, class, and gender all contributed to perceptions of women’s violence as legitimate or illegitimate. Larsson works directly from the manuscript sources, noting that transcribed records, such as Robert Pitcairn’s frequently referenced work Criminal Trials in Scotland, have historically sidelined women by excluding most cases with violent women, as well as those cases that ended without convictions. Larsson further notes that criminal prosecutions of female violence were more likely to be handled privately, noting that many cases of domestic violence—often motivated by remarriage or inheritance and perpetrated by both women and men—would not have been taken to court, and are therefore often missing from the court records. Larsson’s research shows that while some women were occasionally prosecuted as sole perpetrators of violence, many appeared in trials alongside their husbands or mixed-gender kin groups, suggesting that bonds of kinship played a key role in both court decisions and in the perpetration and motivation of violent acts.
Themes of law, crime, and justice underpin other contributions to this volume, as is apt in a collection dedicated to Elizabeth Ewan. Cynthia J. Neville, for example, examines the form and language of Scottish letters of remission, suggesting that “the language of royal mercy” within these letters echoed developments in the realms of law and prosecution of violent crime in medieval Scotland. In “‘Lo, I am in the Kingis grace: The Language of Royal Mercy in Late Medieval Scotland,” Neville explores the clauses in these documents that became common over time, highlighting the ways in which Scottish kings were initially represented as having the sole and supreme jurisdiction in cases of violent crime, but eventually shared at least some of this authority with lords of parliament. However, Neville also emphasizes the primacy and longevity of Latin as the language of choice in drafting and composing royal acts of clemency, suggesting that Scottish kings consciously claimed and invoked this language in guarding their royal right to dispense justice.
Continuing in the theme of royal justice, in “Transport Networks in Later Medieval Scotland: Routes, Roads and Justice Ayres,” Hector L. MacQueen trace the circuits and routes travelled by justice ayres in the dispensation of royal justice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Not only were these late medieval justice ayres held on a reasonably regular basis, as MacQueen argues, but this continuity and regularity can be viewed as indirect evidence of medieval road systems and transport networks in the southern and eastern regions of Scotland, including river crossings, ferries, and potential sea routes. MacQueen also highlights the communication network of letters sent by and to those travelling with the justice ayres, pointing out that these travellers would have required accommodations, food, horses, and other goods along their route during their travels. Relying primarily on financial records, as many pre-sixteenth-century justiciary court records have not survived, MacQueen notes differences in approach to the dispensation of royal justice between monarchs; however, he also cautions against interpreting increased record-keeping as evidence of increased frequency of justice ayres. Regardless, the activity of royal justice ayres along well-established tracks demonstrates a clear network not only of royal justice but of the networks connecting burghs across Scotland.
Networks of communication, travel, and finance form another common theme across the volume. In “Furnishing the Family: John Clerk of Penicuik and his Network of Interdependencies and Influences,” J. R. D. Falconer explores the commercial ventures of Clerk, a Montrose-based merchant, at the centre of a network of producers of luxury goods in seventeenth-century France. Falconer argues that alongside his reputation for being a fair trader and providing quality goods, Clerk’s ability to build and maintain strong personal relationships and networks was key to his success as a businessman. This networking allowed for social climbing and was key to risk management of a new estate. Falconer notes that Clerk’s familial relationships were also key, in particular highlighting the crucial role that Clerk’s wife, Mary, played in keeping the business running. Falconer argues that Clerk’s adept networking skills contributed to his personal success, but also the intergenerational success of his family.
In “‘I wish you would write oftener’: An Aberdeenshire Emigrant’s Experiences of Nineteenth-Century Canada,” Marjory Harper’s chapter also explores themes of familial obligation, business, and networks of communication and migration. Focusing on letters sent from Canada by William Scott to his relatives back in Aberdeenshire, Harper highlights Scott’s focus on securing financial aid which he felt was crucial to his success in establishing himself in Canada. Covering a wide breadth of time (thirty-two years), the letters document everyday concerns of a new immigrant to Canada, from clothing to travels to book requests, but more frequently revolve around Scott’s core concern with financial matters. Although representative solely of Scott’s end of the correspondence chain, the letters demonstrate the importance of familial and community networks and correspondence across oceans and continents in the Scottish diaspora.
Finally, in “The Physical and Environmental Boundaries of ‘Townlife’ in Nineteenth-Century Edinburgh,” Graeme Morton explores the role of local government in shaping the urban environment at a time when Edinburgh was rapidly transitioning from “townlife” to “citylife.” Like the medieval burgh that gave it birth, nineteenth-century Edinburgh’s urban community was composed of a vast and intersecting overlay of political, geographic, economic, and communication networks and boundaries. In particular, Morton explores the relationships between urbanization, industrialization, environment, population density, and physical health, arguing that taxation and public health policies pursued by urban managers, as well as the volunteer efforts of religious charities and civil societies, had a major impact on the lives of those within the expanding boundaries of the city. The chapter is a fitting conclusion in bringing attention back to the burgh, where Elizabeth Ewan’s own research began with Townlife in Fourteenth-Century Scotland.
As a whole, the contributions to this volume touch on and shed new light on a wide range of topics in Scottish Studies, from family and kinship, to women and gender, to law and crime, to urban and social history. These chapters build on and honour the many achievements and research contributions of Elizabeth Ewan, and offer exciting new directions for future generations of scholars to explore. Thus, Professor Ewan’s legacy will continue well beyond her well-earned retirement and, we hope, inspire new connections, collaborations, and an ever-expanding community of scholars and scholarship in the field of Scottish Studies.
- See for example: Elizabeth Ewan, “Age of Bon-Accord: Aberdeen in the Fourteenth Century,” in New Light on Medieval Aberdeen, ed. J. Smith (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1985), 228–44; Elizabeth Ewan, “The Community of the Burgh in the Fourteenth Century,” in The Scottish Medieval Town, ed. M. Lynch et al. (Edinburgh: John Donald Press, 1988), 32–45; Elizabeth Ewan, “Scottish Burghs,” in Atlas of Scottish History to 1707, eds. P. G. B. McNeill and H. L. MacQueen (Edinburgh: Scottish Medievalists and Dept. of Geography, University of Edinburgh, 1996), 231–7; Elizabeth Ewan, “Town and Hinterland in Medieval Scotland,” in The Preindustrial Cities and Technology Reader, eds. C. Chant and D. Goodman (London: Routledge, 1999), 125; Elizabeth Ewan, “Townlife and Trade,” in Scotland: The Making and Unmaking of the Kingdom, eds. B. Harris and A. R. MacDonald (Dundee: Dundee University Press, 2006) 1–38; Elizabeth Ewan, “Protocol Books and Towns in Medieval Scotland,” in La Diplomatique urbaine en Europe de moyen age, eds. W. Prevenier and T. de Hemptinne (Ghent: Garant, 2000), 143–56; Elizabeth Ewan and Gordon DesBrisay, “Life in the Two Towns,” in Aberdeen Before 1800 , eds. E. P. Dennison et al. (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2002), 44–70; Elizabeth Ewan, “‘Hamperit in ane hony came’: Sights, Sounds and Smells in the Medieval Town,” in A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland, 1000 to 1600, ed. E. J. Cowan and L. Henderson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 109–44; Elizabeth Ewan, “Living in the Late Medieval Town of St Andrews,” in Medieval St Andrews: Church, Cult, City, eds. M. Brown and K. Stevenson (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017), 117–40; Elizabeth Ewan and S. Rigby, “Government, Power and Authority 1300–1540,” in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain 600–1450, ed. D. Palliser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 291–312; Elizabeth Ewan, “‘Tongue You Lied’: The Role of the Tongue in Rituals of Public Penance in Late Medieval Scotland,” in The Hands of the Tongue: Essays on Deviant Speech, ed. E. D. Craun (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), 115–36; Elizabeth Ewan, “Crossing Borders and Boundaries: The Use of Banishment in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Towns,” in Crossing Borders: Boundaries and Margins in Medieval and Early Modern Britain, eds. S. M. Butler and K. Kesselring (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 237–57; Elizabeth Ewan, “Marginally Speaking: Insults and Concepts of Marginality in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Towns” in Deviance and Marginality in Early Modern Scotland, ed. Allan Kennedy (Boydell & Brewer, 2025); Elizabeth Ewan, “An Urban Community: The Crafts in Thirteenth-century Aberdeen,” in Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship, and Community, eds. A. Grant and K. J. Stringer (Edinburgh University Press, 1993), 156–73; Elizabeth Ewan, “Mistresses of Themselves? Female Domestic Servants and By-Employments in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Towns,” in Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity, ed. A. Fauve-Chamoux (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004), 411–33; Elizabeth Ewan, “For Whatever Ales Ye: Women as Consumers and Producers in Scottish Medieval Towns,” in Women in Scotland, c. 1100–1700, eds. E. Ewan and M. Meikle (Tuckwell Press, 1999), 125–35; Elizabeth Ewan, “‘To the Longer Liver’: Provisions for the Dissolution of the Marital Economy in Scotland 1470–1550,” in The Marital Economy in Scandinavia and Britain 1400–1900, ed. M. Agren and A. L. Erickson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 191–206; Elizabeth Ewan, “The Family in Early Modern Scotland,” in The Oxford Companion to Modern Scottish History, eds. T. M. Devine and J. Wormald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 268–84; Elizabeth Ewan, “The Female Character: Early Scots Literature as a Source for the History of Scottish Medieval Women,” ACTA 16 (1993 for 1989): 29–38; Elizabeth Ewan, “Late Medieval Scotland: A Study in Contrasts,” in Companion to Medieval Scottish Poetry, eds. P. Bawcutt and J. H. Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2006), 19–33. ↵
- Elizabeth Ewan, “Women’s History in Scotland: Towards an Agenda,” Innes Review 46 (Autumn 1995): 155–64; Elizabeth Ewan, “A Realm of One’s Own? The Place of Medieval and Early Modern Women in Scottish History,” in Gendering Scottish History: An International Approach, eds. T. Brotherstone, D. Simonton, and O. Walsh (Glasgow: Cruithne Press, 1999), 19–36; Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen Meikle, “Introduction,” in Women in Scotland, c. 1100–1700, xx–xxx; Elizabeth Ewan, “A New Trumpet? The History of Women in Scotland 1300–1700,” History Compass 7, no. 2 (March, 2009), 431–46. See also: Elizabeth Ewan, “Scottish Portias: Women in the Courts in Mediaeval Scottish Towns,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 3 (1992): 27–43; Elizabeth Ewan, “Mons Meg and Merchant Meg; Women in Later Medieval Edinburgh,” in Freedom and Authority: Scotland c. 1050–c. 1650, eds. T. Brotherstone and D. Ditchburn (Tuckwell Press, 1999), 131–42; “‘Divers Injurious Words’: Defamation and Gender in Late Medieval Scotland,” in History, Literature and Music in Medieval Scotland, ed. R. A. McDonald (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 63–86; Elizabeth Ewan, “Crime or Culture? Women and Daily Life in Late Medieval Scotland,” in Twisted Sisters: Women, Crime and Deviance in Scotland Since 1400, eds. Y. Brown and R. Ferguson (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2002), 117–36; Elizabeth Ewan, “The Dangers of Manly Women: Late Medieval Perceptions of Female Heroism in the Second War of Independence,” in Women and the Feminine in Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing, eds. S. M. Dunnigan, C. M. Harker, and E. S. Newlyn (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 3–18; Elizabeth Ewan, “Alison Rough: A Woman’s Life and Death in Sixteenth-century Edinburgh,” Women’s History Magazine 45 (2003): 4–13; Elizabeth Ewan, “Disorderly Damsels? Women and Interpersonal Violence in Pre-Reformation Scotland,” Scottish Historical Review 89, no. 2 (October 2010): 153–71; Elizabeth Ewan, “Impatient Griseldas: Women and the Perpetration of Violence in Sixteenth-Century Glasgow,” Florilegium 28 (2013 for 2011): 149–68; Elizabeth Ewan, “Schooling in the Towns, c.1400–c. 1560,” in The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland, eds. R. Anderson, M. Freeman, and L. Paterson (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 39–56; Elizabeth Ewan, “Women and the Biographies of Nations: The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women,” in True Biographies of Nations? The Cultural Journeys of Dictionaries of Biography, ed. K. Fox (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2019), 119–37; Elizabeth Ewan, “Family, Gender, and Lifecycle in Late Medieval Scotland,” in A Companion to Late Medieval Scotland, ed. A. King (Leiden; Brill, forthcoming). ↵
- Elizabeth Ewan, Townlife in Fourteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 1992); Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen Meikle, eds. Women in Scotland, c. 1100–1700 (Tuckwell Press, 1999; reprinted 2002); Elizabeth Ewan, Sue Innes, Siân Reynolds, and Rose Pipes, eds., The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh University Press, 2006); Elizabeth Ewan, Sue Innes, Jane Rendall, and Siân Reynolds, eds., The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh University Press, 2018); Elizabeth Ewan and Janay Nugent, eds., Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008); Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Ewan, eds., Nine Centuries of Man: Manhood and Masculinities in Scottish History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017). See also, Sarah Dunnigan and Elizabeth Ewan, eds., “Transformative Disorder: Scotland 1550–1650.” A special issue of Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Reforme 30, no. 4 (2008): 3–12; Audrey-Beth Fitch, The Search for Salvation: Lay Faith in Scotland, 1480–1560, ed. Elizabeth Ewan (Edinburgh: Birlinn Press, 2009); Jodi A. Campbell, Elizabeth Ewan and Heather Parker, eds., The Shaping of Scottish Identities: Family, Nation, and the Worlds Beyond Guelph Series in Scottish Studies (Guelph: Centre for Scottish Studies, 2011); Janay Nugent and Elizabeth Ewan, eds., Children and Youth in Premodern Scotland (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015); Sierra Dye, Elizabeth Ewan and Alice Glaze, eds., Gender and Mobility in Scotland and Abroad (Guelph: Centre for Scottish Studies, 2018). ↵
- Janay Nugent, Cathryn Spence, and Mairi Cowan, eds., Gender in Scotland: 1200–1800: Place, Faith, and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2024). ↵
- See “Foreword” to this volume. ↵
