The Students of the Scots College in Rome

Abstract

First paragraph: Following the Reformation, Scottish Catholics were barred from attending universities in their own country. In response to this, and to the pressing need for missionary priests, the Scottish Catholic community founded a series of colleges on the continent: at Paris, Douai, Madrid, and, of course, Rome.1 A Scottish hospitium had existed in Rome since the middle ages, but it was not until 5 December 1600 that Clement VIII promulgated a bull establishing a national college for Catholic Scots there (Anderson: 1961, 9-11; McCluskey, 20). Founded on the same Counter-Reformation principles as the earlier and better-known German College, the Scots College has endured four centuries of vicissitudes, including its plunder and temporary closure during the Napoleonic wars, and remains one of the two survivals of this educational moment in the twenty-first century.