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John Knox

John Knox

1514 CE1572 CE · Haddington

John Knox (c. 1514–1572) was the principal architect of the Scottish Reformation and the founding figure of Scottish Presbyterianism. Ordained a Catholic priest, he converted to Reformed Protestantism under the influence of George Wishart and went on to serve as a galley slave of the French after the fall of St Andrews Castle in 1547. His years of exile — first briefly in Frankfurt, then in Geneva, where he was profoundly shaped by John Calvin — forged his uncompromising Calvinist theology, which he applied on his return to Scotland to dismantle the Catholic establishment and establish a Reformed church governed by presbyteries. His History of the Reformation in Scotland remains an indispensable, if polemical, primary source for the religious upheavals of sixteenth-century Scotland, and his First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women famously antagonised Queen Elizabeth I. Knox's legacy endured through the Church of Scotland and the global Presbyterian tradition that traces its polity directly to his work.

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Stop 1 of 71514–1540Birthplace And Education

HaddingtonScotland

What they did here

Knox was born near Haddington in East Lothian, the most commonly accepted scholarly location, and received his early education there.

About Haddington

Haddington, a town in East Lothian, Scotland. It is traditionally given as the birthplace of the Scottish reformer John Knox (c. 1514).

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with John Knox’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

In the same tradition

John Calvin, Theodore Beza

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with John Knox’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

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