Intellectual culture and Episcopal identity in Scottish Episcopal libraries: the case of the Brechin Library, 1780-1880

Abstract

The Brechin Diocesan Library was founded in Laurencekirk in 1792 and developed on the foundational collections of the books of eighteenth-century clergymen. This thesis examines the variety of episcopal identities, which were supported and preserved in the diocesan library, and the annotations in the books themselves. It demonstrates how the books of the diocesan library preserved a distinctive nonjuring identity, and contextualises this with a study of the library and marginalia of Alexander Jolly, Bishop of Moray. It also examines the development of intellectual cultures within the Brechin Diocesan Library, and how these developed throughout the nineteenth century. It reveals the importance of the bishop of the diocese in shaping the library into a repository representative of their own theological and intellectual identities. It considers the library as an essential tool for the education of the clergy in the early nineteenth century, in a Church which lacked any formal systems of education. Theological identities and engagement with contemporary events of the Anglican Church are revealed through an examination of the use of the library. This includes using case studies of users of the diocesan library through the analysis of the borrowing registers. Lastly, it asserts the importance of intergenerational gifting of books, and the value of provenance inscriptions, in preserving the nonjuring identity and history of the eighteenth-century clergy through the Brechin Diocesan Library.