Satan and the Scots

Frequent discussions of Satan from the pulpit, in the courtroom, in print, in self-writings, and on the streets rendered the Devil an immediate and assumed presence in early modern Scotland. Exploring what it meant to live in a world in which Satan’s presence was believed to be, and indeed, perceived to be, ubiquitous, this book recreates the role of the Devil in the mental worlds of the Scottish people from the Reformation through the early eighteenth century. In so doing it is both the first history of the Devil in Scotland and a case study of the profound ways that beliefs about evil can change lives and shape whole societies.