Death, Life, and Religious Change in Scottish Towns by Mairi Cowan is a reminder to heed that old adage and never judge a book by its cover (as delightful, especially in this case, as that cover may be). A reader might be forgiven for thinking, initially, that Death, Life, and Religious Change is a book concerned with religious history. And while that certainly is one of the foci of the book, to pigeonhole it as religious history is to ignore the multifaceted focus and charming ways in which it skillfully blends religious, social, political, and urban history as it considers lay religious culture in Scottish towns between 1350 and 1560.

The book opens with a description of the bell installed in the parish church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, in 1460. Key to this is the inscription carved into the bell, which, translated, states, “I lament the dead, I summon the living, I subdue thunderbolts” (1). From there, Cowan embarks on a description of Scottish urban history in this period, moving to a discussion of Scotland's connections with other parts of Europe and, relatedly, the political and economic climate of the time. This feeds into a consideration of the religious climate of later medieval Europe, which as Cowan points out, is usually overshadowed by the specter of the Reformation, and a justification for studying the lay religious culture of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries on its own terms, rather than as background to the Reformation. Such an approach is particularly relevant for Scotland because, as Cowan points out, that country has been largely ignored in European—and even British—considerations on the lead-up to the Reformation.

Following the introduction, the book is divided into three clear sections. Part 1, “Lamenting the Dead,” considers, first, how the living influenced the dead, and then how the dead influenced the living. This is perhaps the most “expected” part of the book. In these chapters, those familiar with other studies of medieval religious culture will find the requisite consideration of how people in medieval Scottish towns prepared for death, how they remembered others after death, and how the dead were believed to intervene in the lives of the living.

Part 2, “Summoning the Living,” considers communities of religion and the role of the individual in those communities. Following the theme of “culture” that underpins the entire book, part 2 is most concerned with social culture. For this reader, this section of the book was the most unexpected, and also the most enjoyable. Cowan makes the point that in Scotland, unlike in the rest of Europe, every town contained a single parish (85), giving parishioners, “who all shared coterminous parochial and urban boundaries, a double bond of shared interests” (86). The focus of this interest, at least religiously, was the parish church. The importance of parish churches is illustrated in the investments Scottish townspeople made with regard to their building, maintenance, the selection of the personnel who would serve within them, and the uses, both religious and secular, that these churches served. One such use, which combined religious and secular elements, was how churches were used by guilds. Guilds often spent at least part of the money their societies gathered on a presence, usually by way of an altar, in the parish church and on participation in processions, most notably those associated with the feast of Corpus Christi.

Part 3, “Subduing Thunderbolts,” offers a consideration of religious dissent active in Scotland prior to the Reformation, and then a consideration of Catholic reform as the Scottish Church sought to address the source of the dissent. In chapter 5, “Religious Dissent,” Cowan offers a roundup of challenges faced by the Scottish Church by the end of the medieval period, including weaknesses among its personnel, religious indifference among laypeople, and the growing influence of religious dissenters, like Lollards. Cowan argues that while the tendency among historians is to see the Scottish Reformation as inevitable, this was far from the case. She follows the chapter on religious dissent with one on Catholic reform and argues for the presence, in Scotland, of a Catholic Reformation before the Protestant one had taken place. In discussing this, Cowan challenges the prevailing attitude that the religious culture of Scotland was “one of continuity from the eleventh century until the Protestant Reformation” (181). A corollary of that is that the Protestant Reformation is often seen as the dividing line between medieval and early modern Scotland. As Cowan notes, this is problematic. Her choice to end her own study in 1560—the same year as the Protestant Reformation in Scotland—perhaps indicates that there is no easy way to remedy this debate.

A short, one-page conclusion feels somewhat tacked on at the end. After six chapters that inspire so many new ways of thinking about Scottish towns in the lead-up to the Reformation and, toward the end, the challenge to the point the medieval period ends and the early modern one begins, a longer conclusion mulling over the wealth of information presented might have resulted in a more satisfying end. However, a short conclusion does little to affect the overall impact of the book. In the preface, Cowan makes reference to how a more holistic engagement with the study of the Middle Ages was encouraged in her MA and PhD programs, and she remarks that she hopes this approach left its mark on the book. Because Death, Life, and Religious Change not only chronicles changing approaches to religion but also helps the reader to gain a deeper appreciation for those people who participated in this religious culture (sometimes in very entertaining ways), it is clear to see that it has.