BBC Radio Scotland Highlands and Islands

Societies with Secrets

Societies with Secrets: Episode 3: The Scottish Brotherhoods

Factual: History

Episode 3

Episode 3: The Scottish Brotherhoods

The Scottish Brotherhoods

BBC Radio Scotland - Societies with Secrets, The Scottish Brotherhoods

Billy Kay explores the Order del Toboso in Russia and the Scottish Brotherhoods in Poland.

Billy Kay goes abroad to find St Andrews societies in America, Scottish Brotherhoods in Poland, the Jacobite Order del Toboso in Russia and the Realm of Zion in Europe.

3/4
"I'm standing in the centre of the ancient and beautiful city of Cracow in Poland. When our first travel writer William Lithgow came here in 1612 he discovered an "abundance of gallant rich merchants, my countreymen who were all very kind to me, and so were they by the way in every place where I came, the conclusion being ever sealed with deep draughts and 'God be with you' Lithgow met "men of singular note of honesty and wealth" all over Poland, members of exclusive merchant guilds called The Scottish Brotherhoods"

Billy Kay examines the societies the Scots initiated abroad like the Scottish Brotherhoods which existed in at least twelve Polish cities and met at an annual parliament of the organisation at Torun in Prussia. The Brotherhoods were very much an ethnic extension of the trades incorporations and merchant guilds they belonged to at home, and were dominated by wealthy Scots. However, they usurped the trade of the German Bürger in the towns and created resentment. So ubiquitous was the Scotch Pedlar that mammies warned their bairns when they were bad, Warte bis der Schotte kommt - you be good or a Scot 'll come and take ye away! With hordes of youths flooding in, the settled Scots even wrote to James VI advising him to stop the flow for the sake of their business and the countries reputation.

In the 18th century, we began lookng west rather than east for lands to put down our roots in. In 2013, Edinburgh University's Centre for Diaspora Studies held a conference on Associational Culture in Scotland and the Wider World. There Billy explored Scottish societies in North America with experts like Sarah McCaslin and Professor Graeme Morton from the University of Guelph's Scottish Studies Foundation.

BBC Radio Scotland

Billy Kay explores the often-secret world of Scotland's fraternal organisations.

Billy Kay explores the often-secret world of Scotland's fraternal organisations, from the Hammermen and the Horseman's Word to the Squaremen and the Beggar's Benison.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Societies with Secrets

Episode 3: The Scottish Brotherhoods

Genres

Series

BBC Radio Scotland Highlands and Islands

About BBC Radio Scotland