Andrew Melville and Humanism in Renaissance Scotland 1545-1622

The intellectual legacy of Andrew Melville (1545-1622) as a leader of the Renaissance and a promoter of humanism in Scotland has been obscured by the Melville legend. In an effort to dispense with ‘the Melville of popular imagination’ and recover ‘the Melville of history,’ this work situates his life and thought within the broader context of the northern European Renaissance and French humanism and critically re-evaluates the primary historical documents of the period, namely James Melville’s Autobiography and Diary and the Melvini epistolae. By considering Melville as a humanist, university reformer, ecclesiastical statesman, and man, an effort has been made to determine his contribution to the flowering of the Renaissance and the growth of humanism in Scotland during the early modern period.