Life at the Margins in Early Modern Scotland

ALLAN KENNEDY is Lecturer in Scottish History at the University of Dundee, Scotland. SUSANNE WESTON is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Dundee, Scotland. ALLAN KENNEDY is Lecturer in Scottish History at the University of Dundee, Scotland. SUSANNE WESTON is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Dundee, Scotland.

• List of IllustrationsContributorsAcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations Introduction: Centring the Margins - Allan Kennedy and Susanne Weston Part I: Social Margins1. Disability and the Domestic Sphere in Early Modern Scotland - Charlotte Holmes2. Relieving the Poor in Mid-Seventeenth-Century East Fife - Samantha Hunter and Allan Kennedy3. The Marginalisation of Gypsies in Scotland, 1573-c.1625 - Thomas Tyson4. Burgesses on the Edge - Kevin Hall5. Enslaved and Formerly Enslaved Young People in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Scotland - Matthew LeePart II: Occupational Margins6. Working on the Margins: Freemen, Unfreemen, and Stallangers in Early-Modern Scotland - Aaron M. Allen7. The Life of the Lockman - Laura I. Doak8. 'Huirdom and Harlotrie': Female Sex Workers in Early Modern Edinburgh, 1689-1760 - Susanne Weston9. Navigating Marginality: The Coal Mine Workers of Seventeenth-Century Scotland - Robert D. Tree Part III: Contemplating Marginality 10. Migrants, Itinerants, and the Marginality of Mobility in Seventeenth-Century Scotland - Allan Kennedy11. Seeking the Lord, Seeking a Husband: Navigating Marginality in the Diary of Rachel Brown (1736-38) - Martha McGill12. Queering the Castalian: James VI and I and 'Narratives of Blood' - Lucy R. Hinnie Afterword

The collection's strength lies in its broad scope, encompassing a wide array of marginalized groups, including the poor, religious minorities, women, criminals, the disabled, migrants, and cultural minorities. The volume avoids reductive portrayals of marginality. Instead, its contributors acknowledge the agency and resilience of marginalized individuals, while critically examining the structural forces that perpetuated their exclusion.