Editing the Past: Cosmo Innes and the Scottish Medieval Church

In 1832 the Maitland Club published an edition of the register of Paisley Abbey, a sixteenth century manuscript detailing, through transcripts of original charters and other documents, the institution’s property and privileges. This publication was the first of its kind in Scotland and was the work of the lawyer, historian and record scholar Cosmo Innes (17981874). He went on to edit a further thirteen editions of monastic and Episcopal registers, cartularies and original charters, focusing always on the institutional and legal remains of the Pre-Reformation church rather than on liturgical or doctrinal issues. Innes was an important figure in the development of modern Scottish medievalism and was also an advocate for Scotland’s Catholic medieval church in a predominantly Presbyterian country. But Innes was not a narrative historian in the mould of Patrick Fraser Tytler or John Hill Burton. Whilst he did produce some original prose works, the bulk of his output was as an editor of a wide range of medieval Scottish sources relating not just to the church, but also to Parliament, law, the burghs, the universities and family history. Innes presented his depiction of the past not through multi-volume historical syntheses but through the sources themselves. Nevertheless his presentation of those sources was from far from neutral; like all historians