St Andrews occupies a place in Scotland's religious and intellectual life out of all proportion with its present size. If always smaller than Edinburgh or Aberdeen, this was a town that had once easily equalled Dunfermline or Stirling; and, while kings may have been instrumental in its early prominence, it was its developing role as an ecclesiastical centre – home to Scotland's premiere bishop (and, from 1472, its archbishop), much its largest monastery and a shrine with an international profile – that laid the foundations for its medieval eminence. If an unusually high share of its population was always clerical, such an imbalance was only magnified after the formal foundation of its University in 1413 – although this may, in fact, have paved the way to more of an intermixing of clergy and laity, since previously the former had been concentrated in the spiritual precinct gathered round the abbey to the east of the settlement, and with the latter occupying the secular ward of the town's middle and western areas. A Reformation of striking violence and rapidity, whose results are clearly visible in the ruins that still dominate the town's skyline, did much to undermine the wealth and importance of the burgh, wrecking the abbey and the archbishop's residence (known as the castle), destroying the shrine, expelling monks and friars, dispersing most of the clergy and effectively severing the town from the broad acres of a see, which, ministering to the core of the Scottish nation, and extending from Berwick to Aberdeen, had effectively granted the town a prominent jurisdictional role and a lucrative income. Having lost much of its raison d’être, the town dwindled and, while surviving, the University, too, played a decidedly diminished role.

In the last century and more, a revived University has found, in the long and rich history of the burgh's ecclesiastical heritage, a rewarding subject for study; and, if the records are patchy, they can be made to reveal a good deal about the life of the medieval ecclesiastical communities, about the broader impact that the shrine and the bishops’ jurisdiction had (respectively) on the layout and the prominence of the burgh and also about the livelihoods of those who dwelt in the secular ‘half’ of the settlement. If by no means the first exploration of the ecclesiastical development in St Andrews, or of the genesis of the University, or even of the town's characteristics, one of the virtues of the present volume is that many of the differing facets of this extraordinary township – from c. 700 until 1560 – are covered side-by-side, productively gathered together and facilitating a cross-pollination of themes. Not only do the editors take the opportunity to set the scene in a very useful introductory over-view essay, but they have also thought to include, in a series of appendices, the early descriptions of the translation of St Andrew's relics, along with discussion of some of the earliest endowments supporting the community and a transcription of property deeds, helpfully illuminating discussion at various points. This typifies a well-thought-out volume: not only do the essays gain from their juxtaposition with other studies on related themes, but each is also pleasingly clearly written, and all combine to produce a whole decidedly greater than the sum of its parts. It is particularly pleasing to find in a volume that could, and with some justification, have restricted itself to the ecclesiastical and educational three or four essays that investigate the lives and livelihoods of laity that lived in the burgh – shedding welcome light on the secular community and its commerce, and on the inevitable interaction between the church as landlord and the people who were both tenants and believers. But it seems an opportunity lost that Bess Rhodes, in an otherwise fascinating essay, ultimately seems to view the late medieval urban church in terms of an incubus waiting to be thrown over. Her deadpan assessment that the parish church, Holy Trinity and St Salvator's College and the Cathedral each supported some 30 chantry priests (in addition to numerous other clergy in the second and third of these institutions) surely indicates that this was a town with a liturgical tradition that was second to none but, sadly, this is not explored. Contemporaries self-evidently judged worship an eminently worthy objective, and would probably not have sympathized with the binary that is introduced distancing the means for worship from the redemption of souls. Rather than resorting to the trope of clerical greed, there is surely mileage in considering how contemporaries deemed worship as well worth paying for – especially when friars (whom they also supported) were on hand to offer expert pastoral care. Similarly, Katie Stevenson's essay on heresy, or, more accurately, on the rumours that circulated concerning Lollard activities and Hussite embassies, emerges as all smoke with (mercifully) little fire: the question that is left unanswered is quite why there was so much smoke – and what, therefore, was the broader role that this perceived threat was made to play? But it is intriguing, too, to learn that the early history of the University is still open to reassessment, and Norman Reid's argument that the long-term presence of a cadre of educated clergy, clearly possessing many books, encouraged the pragmatic practice of high-grade learning, and meaning that the formal inception of the University in 1413 was a less decisive step than is usually portrayed. In this context, Roger Mason's essay on the first century and more of the University and on its responses to the growing challenges in the early and mid-sixteenth century is impressive, not just in explaining with clarity how and why the fledgling institution developed as it did, but also in deftly sketching the complicated broader context. But this paradigm works for the whole volume: each chapter stands securely on its own, gathering stature from the company it keeps; each also relates productively with broader discussions elsewhere – opening doors onto subjects as various as medieval town planning, on the artistic integrity of the church in Britain north of the Humber in the twelfth century, on the omni-presence of productive links with northern Europe, on the rhythm of the liturgical year and on the iconography and survival of regalia. This is a handsome and well-produced volume, with a myriad of applications that extend far beyond ‘the auld grey toun’.