On 31 October 1517 the German monk Martin Luther posted 95 theses for academic disputation on the door of a church in Wittenberg. This event now symbolises the starting point of the Protestant Reformation, and this year sees its 500th anniversary. We have put on an exhibition of original Lutheran tracts which tell the story […]
Tag: religion
Scottish Catholic records
If you are interested in researching your Catholic ancestors in Scotland then Andrew R. Nicoll’s book “Scottish Catholic Family History: a family historian’s guide to Catholic parish registers and cemetery records for Scotland and the Bishopric of the Forces” (2011) provides a good starting point. It provides details of what records are available, where they […]
Dr Graham’s Kalimpong Homes
Scottish missionary papers in the library’s archive and manuscript collections are replete with stories of individual Scots who sought to fulfil their vocation overseas. Figures requiring little introduction are well represented in the papers, such as in the journals of David Livingstone or letters of Mary Slessor, along with more surprising gems, including the last […]
Peru, Jesuits and a Scottish translator
John Hay (1547-1607) was a Scottish Jesuit who lived as an exile on the Continent. Hay entered the Society of Jesus in 1566 and became noted for his polemical treatises. In his later years he was based in the Low Countries where he translated Jesuit mission reports into Latin. We have been fortunate to acquire […]
More Gaelic Books Digitised
We have reached the first milestone in digitising all our out-of-copyright books in Gaelic: the first 50 are now freely accessible and can be read in full on our website about Early Gaelic Book Collections! The digitised books were published between 1631 and 1900 and cover mostly literary and religious subjects from poetry and songs to translations […]
A Beautiful Binding
The Library has the largest collection of bindings by the brothers James and William Scott, renowned Scottish bookbinders who were active in the second half of the 18th century. We are always looking to add to our collections of bindings, and here’s one we bought recently. This particular volume is bound in a red morocco […]
Shakespeare and the King James Bible
In the famous radio programme Desert Island Discs, castaways are always automatically given the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare as essentials on their desert island, symbolizing the position the two hold as the twin pillars on which so much of our culture is founded. Until Sunday January 8th, you can see original editions of […]
A Previously Loved Book
Here’s a book we bought not so much because of what’s in it, but because of who owned it. It’s an English translation of a theological treatise by a French noblewoman, Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc, Duchesse de la Valliere (1644-1710), called The penitent lady (NLS shelfmark AB.1.211.014). The book itself does not look terribly exciting – but […]
Written by a Scottish Jesuit
We recently bought a book that’s now 525 years old! It was written by the Scottish Jesuit John Hay (1547-1607), and its English title is “Certaine demandes concerning the Christian religion”. The book consists of 166 questions on points of religious controversy. It is still in its original binding: Hay moved from Scotland to Rome in […]
Sonnet for National Poetry Day
Today is National Poetry Day, and what better way to celebrate than with a sonnet? The popular image of the Calvinism of the Scottish Reformation is that it was a dour religion with no time for art. So you may be surprised to hear that this sonnet can be found in nothing less than the […]