Links for the Study of Pre-Modern Scotland

Welcome to the wider world of pre-Modern Scottish studies. Here you’ll find links to resources, societies and events relevant to Older Scots literature.

DSL: Dictionaries of the Scots Language: allows searching of the pre-1700 DOST (Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue) and/or the post-1700 SND (Scottish National Dictionary)

Scottish Text Society

Scottish Record Society

Records of the Parliament of Scotland: see especially section 3. ‘I’m interested in researching the Scots language. What sort of material can I find in RPS?’

LAOS: Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots

Scottish Handwriting: excellent guide to Scottish handwriting of the 16-18th centuries from the National Records of Scotland.

Studies in Scottish Literature: this journal often features work on Older Scots literature

Wee Windaes ‘A continuum o the Scots Leid’ from the National Library of Scotland

The Scottish Medievalists: Society of Scottish Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Association for Scottish Literature: publishers of several key editions of Older Scots poets, including the works of William Dunbar and Sir David Lyndsay

An Atlas of Scottish History to 1707

Scots Language Centre / Centre for the Scots Leid : primarily Modern Scots, but some useful resources for Older Scots, particularly the papers of A. J. Aitken (perhaps the most eminent linguistic historian of Older Scots)

From Inglis to Scots: ongoing University of Edinburgh study of the spelling variation of Older Scots

Symposium for Seventeenth-Century Scottish Literatures