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Author Graham, Michael F

Title The blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead : boundaries of belief on the eve of the enlightenment / Michael F. Graham
Published Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, ©2008

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 180 pages) : 1 illustration, 2 maps
Contents Contents; Abbreviations; A Note on the Text; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Edinburgh and Scotland in the 1690s; The Politics of Blasphemy; 'So unnaturall a seasone': The Dreadful Year 1696; The Making of a Blasphemer; Trial and Execution; The Aftermath: Public Opinion in Scotland and England; Conclusion; Bibliography of Works Cited; Index
Summary This is the first modern book-length study of the case of Thomas Aikenhead, the sometime University of Edinburgh student who in 1697 earned the unfortunate distinction of being the last person executed for blasphemy in Britain. Taking a micro-historical approach, Michael Graham uses the Aikenhead case to open a window into the world of Edinburgh, Scotland and Britain in its transition from the confessional era of the Reformation and the covenants, which placed high emphasis on the defence of orthodox belief, to the polite, literary world of the Enlightenment, of which Edinburgh would become a major centre. Graham traces the roots of the Aikenhead case in seventeenth-century Scotland and the law of blasphemy which was evolving in response to the new intellectual currents of biblical criticism and deism. He analyzes Aikenhead's trial and the Scottish government's decision to uphold the sentence of hanging. Finally, he details the debate engendered by the execution, carried out in a public sphere of print media encompassing both Scotland and England. Aikenhead's case became a media event which highlighted the intellectual and cultural divisions within Britain at the end of the seventeenth century
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697 -- Trials, litigation, etc
Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697 -- Death and burial
Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697
SUBJECT Aikenhead, Thomas, 1676-1697 fast
Aikenhead, Thomas. swd
Subject Trials (Blasphemy) -- Scotland -- Edinburgh
Blasphemy -- Scotland -- History -- 17th century
Enlightenment -- Scotland
Hanging -- Scotland -- History -- 17th century
HISTORY.
LAW -- Criminal Law -- General.
HISTORY -- Renaissance.
Death and burial of a person
Blasphemy
Civilization
Enlightenment
Hanging
Intellectual life
Trials (Blasphemy)
Gotteslästerung
Strafverfolgung
SUBJECT Scotland -- Intellectual life -- 17th century
Scotland -- Civilization -- 17th century
Subject Scotland
Scotland -- Edinburgh
Schottland
Genre/Form Trial and arbitral proceedings
History
Trials, litigation, etc.
Trial and arbitral proceedings.
Comptes rendus de procès et d'arbitrage.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0748634274
9780748634279
1281947768
9781281947765
9786611947767
6611947760
0748653457
9780748653454