Scottish Neo-medievalism

The phenomenon of Scottish neo-medievalism in the long nineteenth century is diverse, finding expression in Gothic architecture; paintings and murals; book illustration; fiction, poetry, revivals of ballad and romance; the founding of scholarly and antiquarian societies; and Arts and Crafts-related educational practices. This chapter explores neo-medieval articulations which can be termed ‘vernacular’—in other words, explicitly Scottish or ‘Celtic’ in subject matter. It traces their recurrent ideological, cultural, and political associations (for example, Catholicism, Anglo-Scottish relationships and Wars of Independence, Jacobitism and political rebellion), and the patterns of nostalgia and desire which underpin them. The chapter also discusses turn-of-the century literary and artistic practices which draw on a distinctly Scottish neo-medieval aesthetic