History Scotland Magazine: Review - The Oxford Companion to Scottish History, ed. Michael Lynch

The Oxford Companion to Scottish History

ed. Michael Lynch

(Oxford, 2001). ISBN: 0-19-211696-7. Pp. xxvi + 732, hardback, 30.00.

A hundred and eighty-eight scholars, a very wide range of Scotlands historical community, have written the articles in this ambitious thematic survey of two millennia. No other word than scholars will do, because the articles are masterpieces of interpretation, skilfully underpinned by relevant information, and honest in admitting to legitimate disagreements. Wide sampling revealed (despite the miniscule type-face employed) only one misprint and one howler scarcely noticeable in a biography of Willie Ross (Simon de Montforts Englsih parliament in 1278, p.530). From such a Press and such editors a reviewer should be able to say this is a work the reader can rely on; of this Companion the verdict is well-earned and trebly appropriate, for its comments or judgements will often stir up the dustier recesses of the readers mind, and its Guide to Further Reading will send him/her to where the questions it has provoked may be answered. There are 65 short biographies on important Scotsmen (all right, of St Margaret and 64 m4n), on a choice of names which whets the appetite for more: roll on the New DNB (Scots).

After sampling, I opened at random and read one letter, R, 56 pages from radio to Russia, and I was left curious, with a desire to follow some topics further, but also a questioning of the choices made. Regional identities for example is resolutely eastern (the north-eastm the Borders, Orkney and Shetland), disappointing for readers in the south-west; the Glasgow conurbation, properly ignored under this heading since it has regional rhetoric and little identity, should be pleased by a challenging short account of Red Clydeside. The reader who turns to Royal High School will find little on that school, while Royal Museum of Scotland has nothing on the history of national museums in Scotland nor does museum provision by others find a place here or elsewhere; these two entries, with those of Parliament House and the Portrait Gallery, tell only of the architecture of the buildings, a fact of which the reader is apprised in the Classified Contents if he already knows it (p.xx).

An excellent article on Reformation questions whether this was a movement from Below or Above, Rapid or Slow, in a particularly effective four pages. The topic and fragments of the argument recur in the article on religious life. This article, sound up to 1689, then treats of Moderatism and Evangelicalism, secularisation, and has a disproportionately long piece on the Highlands. These reflect pioneering work on unfashionable subjects, remote to the people in the pews (p.viii) today, but which once preoccupied bourgeois society. This religious life article is supplemented by a frank but sympathetic account of the Roman catholic community since about 1800, which acknowledges the drop in attendances and vocations since Vatican II. But where are the declining attendances, baptisms, marriages, and Sunday School enrolments and recourse to women clergy, in the other denominations? Despite a bold profession that particular attention would be given to the twentieth century (p.vii) articles such as rough culture necessarily deal with recent times briefly and tentatively; for drastic recent changes in the place of women in our society, look not at women, but at a thought-provoking article on family.

These searches bring me to the gripe at which I have already hinted. Despite elaborate prefatory matter, including Classified Contents and a Note to the Reader which explains the use of an asterisk (e.g. *Adomnan) as a cross-reference, finding persons and subjects is difficult. It is unfortunately not true, for example, that within the piece on Columba there are references to *church institutions and *religious life. The other form of cross-referencing, (see RELIGIOUS LIFE: 1) may be too obvious to explain; presumably there was a reason for not using (see *religious life:1). Another way of finding information is an extraordinary index which has no page numbers but gives references to entry-headings to various treatments of the subject, but does not include those subjects which have their own entry, unless they are significant towns or districts. Under this provision Iona qualifies in both places, but in the Index there is no reference to the entry Columba (anyone would know that), Adomnan (anyone using this book should know that) or Diarmait foster-son of Daigre (!). At least the Index is alphabetical; the List of Contributors is fine if you seek your friends, for it is alphabetical by name, but f you seek the identity of contributor RDA, seek on for you will find him third after RJA.

These peculiarities are not merely a pity; they are a bizarre obstacle to the wide, indeed popular use which the book and all the effort which has gone into its production deserve. There is no competitor of the same scope on the shelves today, and any which is planned or in production will be hard put to it to match this one in professionalism of research and writing; it is a work of which the contributing scholars have every right and reason to be proud.

A.A.M.Duncan,
University of Glasgow