Participant Info

First Name
Bess
Last Name
Rhodes
Affiliation
Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust
Website URL
Keywords
Reformation, Religious Violence, Church Finance, Landscape History, Digital Heritage, St Andrews, Fife, Perth and Kinross
Additional Contact Information

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

My research focuses on Scotland in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The economic situation of the late medieval Church was a key theme of my monograph Riches and Reform: Ecclesiastical Wealth in St Andrews, c. 1520-1580. The ways in which religion (and religious institutions) shaped wider Scottish society forms a central aspect of my research. I also have a long-standing interest in Scottish landscapes and buildings – reflected in my current work on the Perth and Kinross Archaeological Research Framework and in my involvement in several projects digitally reconstructing historic sites. I am enthusiastic about using new technologies to communicate history to wider audiences and have undertaken research and public engagement activities in this area.

Recent Publications

Monograph:

Riches and Reform: Ecclesiastical Wealth in St Andrews, c. 1520-1580 (Brill, 2019).

For further information see: https://brill.com/view/title/35029

 

Book Chapters and Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals:

‘Augmenting Rentals: The Expansion of Church Property in St Andrews, c. 1400-1560’, in Michael Brown and Katie Stevenson, eds, Medieval St Andrews: Church, Cult, City (Boydell and Brewer, 2017), pp. 223-236.

‘Property and Piety: Donations to Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews’ in John McCallum, ed., Scotland’s Long Reformation: New Perspectives on Scottish Religion, c.1500-1560 (Brill, 2016), pp. 27-48.

‘Paper, Parchment and Protestants: Reformers and the Preservation of Catholic Ecclesiastical Documents in the Parish of St Andrews, c. 1550-80’, Scottish Archives: The Journal of the Scottish Records Association (2011), pp. 44-55.

 

Book Reviews:

Review of Amy Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland, Innes Review (November 2017), pp. 191-193.

Review of J.R.D. Falconer, Crime and Community in Reformation Scotland: Negotiating Power in a Burgh Society, The Scottish Historical Review (April 2015), pp. 109-110.

 

Short Feature Articles:

‘“Fury and Madness”: The Statue Smashing of 1559’, History Scotland (July / August 2021).

‘Reformation and Reconstruction: Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews’, Current Archaeology (September 2019).

‘War of the Word’, Historic Scotland: The Magazine for Historic Scotland Members (Spring 2019).

‘St Andrews Cathedral: The Jewel of Sixteenth-Century Scotland’, History Scotland (September / October 2018).

‘Tournaments: The Sport of Kings’, Historic Scotland: The Magazine for Historic Scotland Members (Summer 2017).

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Scotland
Expertise by Geography
British Isles, United Kingdom
Expertise by Chronology
Medieval, Pre-17th century, Early Modern
Expertise by Topic
Art & Architectural History, Economic History, Public History, Religion