Andrew Melville (1545-1622): writings, reception and reputation

Andrew Melville is chiefly remembered today as a defiant leader of radical Protestantism in Scotland, John Knox?s heir and successor, the architect of a distinctive Scottish Presbyterian kirk and a visionary reformer of the Scottish university system.

While this view of Melville?s contribution to the shaping of Protestant Scotland has been criticised and revised in recent scholarship, his broader contribution to the development of the neo-Latin culture of early modern Britain has never been given the attention it deserves.

Yet, as this collection shows, Melville was much more than simply a religious reformer: he was an influential member of a pan-European humanist network that valued classical learning as much as Calvinist theology.