The 1560 Act
Older Scots Reading 1
Chapter 8 · The 1560 Act
📜 The 1560 Act
This chapter reads one sentence of official Scots prose: the long title of the Act of 1560 that ratified the Protestant Confession of Faith in Scotland. It is a sentence full of passives and past endings, and it shows how the spelling habits of Chapter 1 work on a document. In Chapter 6, Bannatyne's note said the church had been reformed in 1560; this is the legal text behind that date.
The text
The Confessioun of fayth professed and beleued be the protestantis within the Realme of scotland
publischeit be thame in parliament and be the estaitis thairof ratifeit and apprevit as hailsome
and sound doctrine groundit vpoune the infallibill trewth of godis word.
The article's English rendering of the end: "ratifeit and apprevit as wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the infallible truth of God's word".
My reading of the whole: "The Confession of Faith professed and believed by the Protestants within the Realm of Scotland, published by them in Parliament, and by the Estates thereof ratified and approved as wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the infallible truth of God's word."
Source: Wikipedia, Confession of Faith Ratification Act 1560 and Scots Confession. The first two lines and the first word of the third are not translated by either article, so that part of the reading is mine and unverified. The rendering of the final part is the Scots Confession article's.
Walking through it
- Passives with be. be the protestantis and be thame and be the estaitis mean "by the Protestants", "by them" and "by the Estates". Here be is "by", a preposition, and not the verb. The reading "by" is mine, from the sense; the articles do not gloss it.
- The past endings. professed and beleued end in -ed; publischeit, ratifeit and apprevit end in -eit or -it; groundit ends in -it. Chapter 1 described the Scots -it; the same sentence uses both endings, and I do not know why. The article's rendering turns groundit into "grounded", which matches.
- -is plurals and possessives. protestantis and estaitis are plurals in -is; godis is the possessive "God's". The same ending does both jobs (Chapter 1).
- Spellings. Confessioun and vpoune have ou where English writes o: the same habit as Henrysoun in Chapter 7. vpoune and beleued show u/v interchange (Chapter 1): v at the start of "upon", u in the middle of "believed". publischeit has sch for sh. fayth has ay for ai and th at the end.
- Pronoun and adverb. thame is "them" (as in Chapter 6) and thairof is "thereof". thair was "there" in Chapter 6 and "their" elsewhere.
- Adjectives. hailsome is glossed by the article as "wholesome". My guess is that it is related to hail, "whole", which I did not look up. infallibill ends in -ill where English has -ible; trewth is "truth" with ew.
- Capitals. scotland appears with a small s in the printed title. I give it as printed.
New words
| Older Scots | Meaning | Modern English relative |
|---|---|---|
| Confessioun | confession | confession |
| fayth | faith | faith |
| Realme | realm | realm |
| estaitis | estates (the three estates of Parliament, my reading) | estates |
| ratifeit | ratified | ratified |
| apprevit | approved | approved |
| hailsome | wholesome (the article's rendering) | wholesome |
| groundit | grounded | grounded |
| trewth | truth | truth |
Try It Yourself
Say the answer first, then click to check.
1. What year is the Act, and what did it ratify?
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1560; the Protestant Confession of Faith.
2. Translate groundit vpoune the infallibill trewth of godis word.
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"Grounded upon the infallible truth of God's word."
3. What does be mean in be thame?
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"By" (my reading from the sense).
4. List the words in the sentence ending in -it or -eit.
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publischeit, ratifeit, apprevit, groundit.
5. What do the -is in protestantis and in godis have in common?
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Same ending: a plural in the first, a possessive in the second.
6. What does sch- stand for in publischeit?
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sh: "published".
7. Which two words show ou for o?
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Confessioun and vpoune.
8. What does the article give for hailsome?
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"Wholesome".
9. Which word is thairof in Modern English?
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"Thereof".
10. Whose note in Chapter 6 gave 1560 as the year of the church's reform?
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George Bannatyne's.