Skip to main content

    Elizabeth Ewan

    photo of Elizabeth Ewan

    University Professor Emerita

    College of Arts, Department of History

    eewan@uoguelph.ca

    Education

    Ph.D. Edinburgh University, 1985
    B.A. Queen's University, 1979


    Professional

    University of the Highlands and Islands, Visiting Professor 2021-5

    University of Guelph, Associated Graduate Faculty in History 2021-5

    University of Guelph, University Research Chair, 2006-17

    University of Toronto, Centre for Medieval Studies (Associated Graduate Faculty) 2005-19

    University of Guelph, Professor of History and Scottish Studies, Department of History, 1988-2020

    University of Victoria 1986-1988

    University of Western Ontario 1985-1986


    Research

    medieval and early modern Scotland Scottish urban history history of crime in medieval and early modern Scotland Scottish women's history - Women in Scottish History Website www.womeninscottishhistory.org

    areas of research for graduate supervision
    gender and crime in medieval and early modern Scotland
    medieval and early modern Scottish towns
    Scotland c.1200- c.1600

    current graduate students (2020-21)

    Lisa Baer, "Women and Ambition in Sixteenth-Century Scotland", PhD 2016-

    Chelsea Hartlen, "Violence and Social Control in an Emerging State: Homicide and Asssault Prosecution in Scotland's Justiciary Court, 1493-1558" PhD 2014-

    graduates in last 10 years

    Mary Anne Gonzales (co-advisor) "Charitable Communities: Beguines and Charity in Later Medieval Douai, 1218-1360" PhD 2021

    Persephone Seale "Narrative Ambiguity, Bodily Uncertainty and Community Involvement: Infanticide in Seventeenth-Century Scotland" MA 2020

    Shayna Devlin (co-advisor) "'Whatever the World Admires in a Prince': Robert Stewart, duke of Albany. Power, Politics and Family in Late Medieval Scotland" PhD 2019

    Marian Toledo Candelaria, "From reformed barbarian to saint king: literary portrayals of King Malcolm III Canmore (r 1058-93) in Scottish historical narratives, c. 1100-1449" PhD 2018

    Devon Sherwood (co-advisor), "Like Mother, Like Daughter: Sixteenth-Century Scottish Perspectives on Marie de Guise and Mary Stuart' MA 2018

    Brin Thomson (co-advisor) "Servants in Early Modern England" MA 2018

    Claire Bisset (co-advisor), "Survival and Change on a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Estate: Evidence from the Wauchope Family Records, 1690-1703" MA 2018

    Alice Glaze, "Women's Networks of Family, Work, Support, and Slander in Canongate, 1600-1660" PhD 2017

    Caitlin Holton, "Masculine Identity in Medieval Scotland: Gender, Ethnicity, and Regionality" PhD 2017

    Sierra Dye, "'Devilische Wordis:' Speech as Evidence in Scottish Witch Trials, 1563-1736" PhD 2016

    Jessica Lees, "Conjuring the Devil: Accusations of Witchcraft and the Reclamation of Masculinity in Early Modern Scotland" MA 2016

    Paige Walker, "'Faith Much Beyond her Sexe:' Lady Eleanor Livingstone and Catholic Survival in post-Reformation Scotland" MA 2016

    Andrew Webb, "The Fountain of Faithful Reform: Contextualizing Educational Priorities in Reformation Scotland" MA 2015

    Sean Grant, "Scotland and the Early Modern Naval Revolution, 1488-1603" MA 2014

    Emily Compton (co-advisor), "Property, Proprietry, and Patriarchy: Abduction, Assault, and Housebreaking in the Court of Common Pleas, 1399-1500" MA 2014

    Daniel MacLeod (co-advisor), "Servants of St Mungo: The Church in Sixteenth-Century Glasgow" PhD 2013

    Kate Zubzcyk, "'In Tymes Bygane': Navigating Between Norse Tradition and Scottish Authority in Sixteenth-Century Shetland" MA 2013

    Heather Parker, "'In all gudly haste':The Formation of Marriage in Scotland, c.1350-1600" PhD 2012


    Publications

    books and edited works

    E. Ewan, R. Pipes, J. Rendall and S. Reynolds, edsThe New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018) https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-new-biographical-dictionary-of-scottish-women.html

    Sierra Dye, Elizabeth Ewan and Alice Glaze, eds Gender and Mobility in Scotland and Abroad. (Guelph: Centre for Scottish Studies, 2018) https://www.uoguelph.ca/arts/scottish/publications/guelph

    Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Ewan, eds Nine Centuries of Man: Manhood and Masculinities in Scottish History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017)

    J. Nugent and E. Ewan, eds, Children and Youth in Premodern Scotland (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015)

    J.A. Campbell, E. Ewan and H. Parker, eds.,The Shaping of Scottish Identities: Family, Nation, and the Worlds Beyond Guelph Series in Scottish Studies (Guelph: Centre for Scottish Studies, 2011).

    Audrey-Beth Fitch, The Search for Salvation: Lay Faith in Scotland, 1480-1560, edited by Elizabeth Ewan (Edinburgh: Birlinn Press, 2009).

    E. Ewan and J. Nugent, eds Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).

    S. Dunnigan and E. Ewan, eds, "Transformative Disorder: Scotland 1550-1650." A special issue of Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Reforme 30, no. 4 (2008).

    E. Ewan, S. Innes. S Reynolds, and R. Pipes, eds The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006, 2007).

    E. Ewan and Maureen Meikle, eds, Women in Scotland c.1100-c.1750 (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999, 2000). Full text available at http://dc.lib.uoguelph.ca/women-in-scotland/

    Townlife in Fourteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 1990, 1992).

    selected articles and book chapters

    "Women and the Biographies of Nations: The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women" in True Biographies of Nations? The Cultural Journeys of Dictionaries of National Biography ed Karen Fox (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 119-37.http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n5204/pdf/ch07.pdf

    "Crossing Borders and Boundaries: The Use of Banishment in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Towns" in Crossing Borders: Boundaries and Margins in Medieval and Early Modern Britain ed Sara M. Butler and Krista Kesselring (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 237-57.

    "Living in the Late Medieval Town of St Andrews" in Medieval St Andrews. Church,Cult, City eds M. Brown and K. Stevenson (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017), 117-40.

    "Schooling in the Towns c.1400-c.1560" in The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland ed R. Anderson et al (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 39-56

    "Impatient Griseldas: Women and the Perpetration of Violence in Sixteenth-Century Glasgow," Florilegium 28 (2013 for 2011): 149-68.

    "The Family in Early Modern Scotland," in The Oxford Companion to Modern Scottish History edited by T. M. Devine and J. Wormald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 268-84.

    "'Hamperit in ane hony came': Sights, Sounds and Smells in the Medieval Town," in A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland, 1000 to 1600 edited by E.J. Cowan and L. Henderson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 109-44.

    "Disorderly Damsels? Women and Interpersonal Violence in Pre-Reformation Scotland," Scottish Historical Review 89, no. 2 (October 2010): 153-71.

    "A New Trumpet? The History of Women in Scotland 1300-1700," History Compass 7, no. 2 (March, 2009), 431-46.

    "'Tongue You Lied': The Role of the Tongue in Rituals of Public Penance in Late Medieval Scotland," in The Hands of the Tongue: Essays on Deviant Speech, edited by E.D. Craun. (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), 115-36.

    "Late Medieval Scotland: A Study in Contrasts," in Companion to Medieval Scottish Poetry, edited by P. Bawcutt and J. Hadley Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2006), 19-33.

    "'To the Longer Liver': Provisions for the Dissolution of the Marital Economy in Scotland 1470-1550," in The Marital Economy in Scandinavia and Britain 1400-1900, edited by M. Agren and A.L. Erickson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 191-206.

    "Mistresses of Themselves? Female Domestic Servants and By-Employments in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Towns," In Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity, edited by A. Fauve-Chamoux (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004), 411-33.

    "The Dangers of Manly Women: Late Medieval Perceptions of Female Heroism in the Second War of independence," in Woman and the Feminine in Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Literature edited by S. Dunnigan et al, ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 3-18

    "Alison Rough: A Woman's Life and Death in Sixteenth-century Edinburgh," Women's History Magazine 45 (2003): 4-13.

    "'Divers Injurious Words': Defamation and Gender in Late Medieval Scotland," in History, Literature and Music in Medieval Scotland, edited by R.A. McDonald (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 63-86.

    "Crime or Culture? Women and Daily Life in Late Medieval Scotland," in Twisted Sisters: Women, Crime and Deviance in Scotland Since 1400, edited by Y. Brown and R. Ferguson (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2002), 117-36.

    co-authored with S. Rigby, "Government, Power and Authority 1300-1540," in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain 600-1450, edited by D. Palliser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

    "Mons Meg and Merchant Meg: Women in Later Medieval Edinburgh," in Freedom and Authority: Scotland c. 1050- c. 1650, edited by D. Ditchburn and T. Brotherstone (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2000), 131-42.

    "Women's History in Scotland: Towards an Agenda," Innes Review 46 (Autumn 1995): 155-64.

    "Scottish Portias: Women in the Courts in Mediaeval Scottish Towns," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 3 (1992): 27-43.

    "The Community of the Burgh in the Fourteenth Century," in The Scottish Medieval Town, edited by M. Lynch et al. (Edinburgh: John Donald Press, 1988), 32-45.

    "Age of Bon-Accord: Aberdeen in the Fourteenth Century," in New Light on Medieval Aberdeen, edited by J. Smith (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1985).


    Funding

    Strathmartine Trust, "The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women" (co-investigator) 2017-18

    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
    "Masculinities in Scotland c.1400-c.1650," 2010-2014
    Scouloudi Trust, "Search for Salvation," 2009
    Scottish Government, "The Scottish Diaspora Forum" (co-investigator), 2009
    Strathmartine Trust, "Search for Salvation," 2008
    SSHRC, "Interpersonal Violence in Scotland," 2004-2008
    Strathmartine Trust, "Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women" (co-investigator), 2003-2004
    Scottish Executive, "The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women" (co-investigator), 2003
    SSHRC, "Defamation in Scotland," 2000-2004
    Heritage Ministry, "Scots and Aboriginal Culture" (Co-investigator), 1996
    SSHRC, "Integration of Women's History and Urban History in Scotland," 1992-1995
    SSHRC, "Women in Scotland," 1988-1990
    SSHRC, "Women in Scotland," 1987-1988
    SHRCC, "Scottish Towns in the Fifteenth Century," 1986-1987


    Awards and Fellowships

    Visiting Scholar, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, NZ, 2019

    Visiting Fellow, Australian National University, 2016
    Visiting Fellow, St Andrews University, 2014
    Honorary Patron, History Scotland, 2009
    Visiting Scholar, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 2008
    Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, 2007
    Distinguished Professor Award, University of Guelph, 2005
    Distinguished Teaching Award, Faculty Association, University of Guelph, 2003
    Distinguished Professor Award, University of Guelph, 2003
    College of Arts Teaching Award, University of Guelph, 2002
    Distinguished Professor Award, University of Guelph, 2001
    Royal Historical Society, David Berry Prize for Essay in Scottish History, 1999
    Visiting Fellow, International Social SciencesInstitute, University of Edinburgh, 1998
    Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1993-1994
    Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, 1990
    Jeremiah Dalziel Prize in British History, 1983