The Search for Salvation: Lay Faith in Scotland, 1480–1560. By Audrey-Beth Fitch. Edited by Elizabeth Ewan. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2009. xvii + 206 pp. £25.00 cloth.

摘要

This important book fills a major gap in late medieval Scottish history and addsncolor and detail to our knowledge of pre-Reformation piety throughout Europe.nIt is a major triumph that the book, only three-quarters finished at the time ofnAudrey-Beth Fitch’s sudden and untimely death, has been published at all. Thensensitive editing by Elizabethan Ewan and the assistance of many of Beth’snfriends have made this possible and thereby brought into printed form thenfruits of Beth’s fascinating research. The visual aspect of lay faith innScotland between the end of the fifteenth and the middle of the sixteenthncentury is portrayed in twenty-five black and white plates. A glimpse hasnbeen given of the color that would have abounded in the reproductions onnthe dust jacket from the Arbuthnott Prayer Book showing Mary as Queen ofnHeaven on the front cover and Jesus, the Holy Blood, and the Eucharist onnthe back. A short and useful glossary will help students to cope with thentechnical and specific terms that abound in late medieval religion.