RELIGION IN SCOTLAND

 Celtic Spirituality

There are no records of any religious or spiritual ceremonies celebrated by the Picts or ancient Celts of Scotland, as they did not keep written records. Evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts (some of it hostile and probably not well-informed) and literature from the early Christians.

There is a presumption that Early Pictish religion resembled Celtic paganism. Celtic polytheism flourished during the Iron Age, throughout most Celtic peoples of Europe.

Celtic religion

So, details are scant, and it did vary by location and era, but there were underlying broad similarities and "a basic religious homogeneity”.

Ancient Celts did celebrate four seasonal festivals, known to the medieval Gaels as Beltaine (May), Lughnasadh (August), Samhain (November) and Imbolc (February).

It is believed that the Celts had many gods and goddesses and that they worshipped their gods through sacrifice, giving them valuable objects to keep them happy.

• Celts believed in healing deities; and many beleived fertility and harvest gods

• some believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld;

• “triplicity” is a common theme (with a number of deities appearing threefold);

• and many Celts were animists, believing that every part of the natural world had a spirit.

Druids

The priests of Celtic religion were "magico-religious specialists" called druids, but little is definitively known about them.

According to a number of Greco-Roman writers a Druids role and responsibility was concerned with "divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, private or public, and the interpretation of ritual questions". However, many historians have criticised these accounts. Oral Irish sources also referred to the druids, portraying them not only as priests but as sorcerers who had supernatural powers that they used for cursing and divination and who opposed the coming of Christianity. Some believe Druids to be the equivalents of teachers, while other believed that they were essentially tribal priests, having more in common with the shamans than with the classical philosophers. Some suggest that Druids evolved into what we know now as Poets and Bards: oral historians.

Places of worship

Celts held ceremonies in sacred groves and other natural shrines, called nemetons, while some Celtic peoples also may have built temples or ritual enclosures.

Although some may have constructed shrines or temples, most worshipped in areas of the natural world that were held to be sacred, namely in groves of trees. By their very nature, such groves would not survive in the archaeological record, and so we have no direct evidence for them today. Places such as rocks, streams, mountains, and trees may all have had shrines or offerings devoted to a deity residing there.

In many cases, when the Roman Empire took control of Celtic lands, earlier sacred sites were reused, with Roman temples being built on top of the same sites.

Ceremonies

Celtic peoples often made offerings of treasured items deposited in water and wetlands, or in ritual shafts and wells. There is evidence they sacrificed animals, almost always livestock or working animals and some evidence that ancient Celts sacrificed humans, and some Greco-Roman sources claim the Gauls sacrificed criminals by burning them in a wicker man.

Celtic burial practices — which included burying people with tidings of food, weapons and ornaments — suggest a belief in life after death.

There is a burial mound on Clan Lands at Cambusmore, which we hope to professionally excavate at some stage…

Dieties

Named Deities found in many regions include

• Lugus, the sole survivor of triplet brothers

• Toutatis, the tribal god

• Taranis, the thunder god

• Cernunnos, the horned god

• Epona, the horse and fertility goddess

• Maponos, the divine son

• Belenos, a Healing god

• Ogmios, Herculean God, also a god of eloquence

• Sucellos, associated with agriculture and wine

Some scholars have speculated that the Celts were Animistic – believing that all aspects of the natural world contained spirits, and that communication was possible with these spirits.

Deities would have been very localised, known and worshiped by inhabitants living near to the shrine itself (not widely known or shared gods). The importance of trees in Celtic religion may be shown by the fact that the very name of the Eburonian tribe contains a reference to the yew tree, and that names like Mac Cuilinn (son of holly) and Mac Ibar (son of yew) appear in Irish myths. In Ireland, wisdom was symbolised by the salmon who feed on the hazelnuts from the trees that surround the well of wisdom (Tobar Segais).

The relatively few animal figures in early Celtic art include many water-birds, and it is speculated that their ability to move on the air, water, and land gave them a special status or significance among the Celts.

Head hunting

Many archaeologists and historians believe that the human head played a significant part in Celtic religion, because of wide-spread iconography: referred to as a "head cult" or "cult of the severed head", and the Celts had a reputation as head hunters.

• Writing in the 1st century BC, the Greek historians Posidonius said Celtic warriors cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle, hung them from the necks of their horses, then nailed them up outside their homes.

• Strabo wrote that Celts embalmed the heads of their most esteemed enemies in cedar oil and put them on display.

• The Roman historian Livy wrote that the Boii beheaded the defeated Roman general after the Battle of Silva Litana, covered his skull in gold, and used it as a ritual cup.

Archaeologists have found evidence that heads were embalmed and displayed. Severed heads are a common motif in insular Celtic myths, and there are many tales in which 'living heads' preside over feasts and/or speak prophecies.

The demise of Celtic faith

After the Roman Empire's conquest of Gaul and southern Britain (43 AD), Celtic religion underwent some Romanisation, resulting in a hybrid Gallo-Roman religion with deities such as Lenus, Mars, Apollo, Grannus, and Telesphorus.

The Gauls gradually converted to Christianity from the third century onward. After the end of Roman rule in Britain (c.410 AD) Celtic paganism began to be replaced by Anglo-Saxon paganism over much of what became England. The Celtic populations of Britain and Ireland gradually converted to Christianity from the fifth century onward. However, Celtic paganism left a legacy in many of the Celtic nations, influenced mythology and in the 20th century served as the basis for a new religious movement, Celtic Neopaganism.

Anglo-Saxon Paganism

Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian religion, occurred between the 5th and 8th centuries AD.

It was a polytheistic belief system, focused around a belief in deities known as the ése (singular ós). The most prominent of these deities was probably Woden (other gods included Thunor and Tiw). There was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities which inhabited the landscape, including elves, trolls and dragons. Practice largely revolved around demonstrations of devotion (including sacrifice) of inanimate objects and animals, to these deities, particularly at certain religious festivals during the year.

As with other areas of Europe, the conversion to Christianity was facilitated by the aristocracy. These rulers may have felt that Paganism was "backward" in contrast to the Christian kingdoms in continental Europe. The pace of Christian conversion varied across Anglo-Saxon England, but by the end of the 680s, all of the Anglo-Saxon peoples were at least nominally Christian.

Paganism was practiced in Scandanavian and Norse cultures well into the 10th century, and these cultures repopulated Scotland throughout this period.

Much of Scottish superstition and mythology comes from this period (as influenced by precursor celtic theology): belief in witchcraft, faeries, ælfe (elves), dwarves, dragons (like Beowulf) and magic.

Modern paganism

These days, there is a minor resurgence in Modern paganism, primarily represented by Wicca and Witchcraft religions, Druidry, and Heathen notions.

Christianity

The date at which Pictish kings converted to Christianity is uncertain, but there are traditions which place Saint Palladius in Pictland after leaving Ireland, and link Abernethy with Saints Brigid and Darlugdach of Kildare

From 500AD

Christianity was first introduced to what is now southern Scotland during the Roman occupation of Britain, and is often said to have been spread by missionaries from Ireland in the fifth century.

Christian churches typically appear in places where Celtic churches were already established. Much could be said about Christian appropriation of Celtic rites in their expansion: from festivals being renamed to appeal to locals; to practices being adopted to ensure familiarity…

Conversion of the Pictish élite seems likely to have run over a considerable period, beginning in the fifth century and not complete until the seventh.

In the sixth century, missionaries from Ireland were operating on the British mainland. This movement is traditionally associated with the figures of St Ninian, St Kentigern and St Columba.

From 700AD

The Christianity that developed in Ireland and Scotland differed from that led by Rome, until the Celtic church accepted Roman practices in the mid-seventh century.

Christianity in Scotland is often said to have been strongly influenced by monasticism, with abbots being more significant than bishops. The Scottish church established its independence from England, developing a clear diocesan structure and becoming a "special daughter of the see of Rome", but it continued to lack Scottish leadership in the form of Archbishops.

From 10th Century

Before the Norman period, Scotland had little clear diocesan structure. There were random diocese’s based on various ancient churches, but most are very obscure in the records and there appear to be long vacancies.

From around 1070, in the reign of Malcolm III, there was a "Bishop of Alba" resident at St. Andrews, but it is not clear what authority he had over the other bishops.

The Declaration of Arbroath

In an attempt for support against the English, the Scots appealed for support to the Pope in 1320. The Declaration of Arbroath was signed by 39 earls and barons for protection against the attempts of English kings to conquer the Scots. The Grandfather-in-Law of Sir Maurice Buchanan, 10th Chief of Buchanan was one.

14th century

With a shortage of clergy, particularly after the Black Death, a number of clerics holding multiple ministries. This meant that parish clergy were largely drawn from the lower and less educated ranks, leading to frequent complaints about their standards of education or ability.

As elsewhere in Europe, the collapse of papal authority in the Papal Schism had allowed the Scottish crown to gain effective control of major ecclesiastical appointments within the kingdom. This led to the placement of friends and relatives of the king in key positions, including James IV's illegitimate son Alexander, who was nominated as Archbishop of St. Andrews at the age of eleven, intensifying royal influence and also opening the Church to accusations of venality and nepotism.

Despite this, relationships between the Scottish crown and the Papacy were generally good, with James IV receiving tokens of papal favour.

James VI and doctrinal Calvinism

The reign of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots (1542 – 1567) eventually ended in civil war, deposition, imprisonment and execution. Her infant son James VI was crowned King of Scots in 1567. He was brought up as a Protestant, and after he asserted his personal rule from 1583 he favoured doctrinal Calvinism, but also episcopacy.

James the 6th inheritance of the English crown led to rule via the Privy Council from London.

He also increasingly controlled the meetings of the Scottish General Assembly and increased the number and powers of the Scottish bishops. In 1618, he held a General Assembly and pushed through Five Articles, which included practices that had been retained in England, but largely abolished in Scotland, most controversially kneeling for the reception of communion. Although ratified, they created widespread opposition and resentment and were seen by many as a step back to Catholic practice.

In 1604 King James commissioned and published (in 1611) the King James Bible (KJB) – an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, responsible for a rise in Christianity throughout England and Scotland, and the dissipation of the Gaelic language.

16th century

James VI was succeeded by his son Charles I in 1625. Where James 6th had divided the people, Charles 1st united them. Charles relied heavily on the bishops, particularly John Spottiswood: the Archbishop of St. Andrews, eventually making him chancellor.

During the sixteenth century, Scotland underwent a Protestant Reformation that created a predominately Calvinist national kirk, which was strongly Presbyterian in outlook. A confession of faith, rejecting papal jurisdiction and the mass, was adopted by Parliament in 1560

The kirk found it difficult to penetrate the Highlands and Islands, but began a gradual process of conversion and consolidation with relatively little persecution.

Charles I brought in reforms seen as a return to papal practice: in 1635 (without consulting Parliament), the king authorised a book of canons that made him head of the Church, ordained an unpopular ritual and enforced the use of a new liturgy. When the liturgy emerged in 1637 it was seen as an English-style Prayer Book, resulting in anger and widespread rioting.

The result was the Bishop's Wars in 1639–40, ending in virtual independence for Scotland and the establishment of a fully Presbyterian system by the dominant Covenanters.

After the execution of the King in January 1649 England was declared a commonwealth and the Scots declared his son king as Charles II. But the English responded with an armed invasion: and after defeats for the Scots, the English occupied the country in 1652 and Scotland was declared part of the Commonwealth. The Kirk became deeply divided, partly in the search for scapegoats for defeat.

After the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, Scotland regained its kirk, but also the bishops. Particularly in the south-west, many of the people began to attend illegal field conventicles. Suppression of these assemblies in the 1680s known as "the Killing Time".

Charles the 2nd died in 1685 and his brother succeeded him as James VII of Scotland (and II of England). James put Catholics in key positions in the government; and attendance at a conventicle was made punishable by death. He disregarded parliament, purged the Council and forced through religious toleration to Roman Catholics, alienating his Protestant subjects.

It was believed that the king would be succeeded by his daughter Mary, a Protestant and the wife of William of Orange (who was Dutch), but when in 1688, James 7th/2nd produced a male heir, James Stuart, it was clear that his “catholic” policies would remain.

An invitation by seven leading Englishmen led William of Orange to land in England with 40,000 men, and James fled, leading to the almost bloodless "Glorious Revolution". The final settlement restored Presbyterianism in Scotland and abolished the bishops, who had generally supported James. However, William, who was more tolerant than the kirk tended to be, passed acts restoring the Episcopalian clergy excluded after the Revolution.

So, after the "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 Presbyterianism was restored.

The Banished followers of James Stewart as King would be known as Jacobites. Read more here

In 1696 the Jacobites, plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate William. William's lack of children and heirs threatened the Protestant succession. The danger was averted by placing distant relatives, the Protestant Hanoverians, in line to the throne with the Act of Settlement 1701. Upon his death in 1702, the king was succeeded in Britain by his sister Anne and as titular Prince of Orange by his cousin John William Friso.

18th century

Long after the triumph of the Church of Scotland in the Lowlands, Highlanders and Islanders clung to an old-fashioned Christianity infused with animistic folk beliefs and practices. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church.

Catholicism had been reduced to the fringes of the country, particularly the Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands. Conditions also grew worse for Catholics after the Jacobite rebellions and Catholicism was reduced to little more than a poorly-run mission.

Also important was Episcopalianism, which had retained supporters through the civil wars and changes of regime in the seventeenth century. Since most Episcopalians had given their support to the Jacobite rebellions in the early eighteenth century, they also suffered a decline in fortunes.

Current religion (2011 census)

Christianity 2,850,199 persons 53.8%

No Religion or Religion not stated 2,309,155 persons 43.7%

Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Sikhism, Judaism or “Other” 136,049 persons 2.5%