Scotland

United Kingdom

Scotland occupies the northern part of the island of Great Britain and is a country of the United Kingdom. Christianity reached it through Roman influence in the south and through missionaries such as Columba on Iona in the sixth century, and a Kingdom of Scotland emerged in the ninth century. The Reformation of 1560 broke with papal authority, and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland is today its largest church. The crowns of Scotland and England were joined in 1603 and the kingdoms united in 1707. In the eighteenth century the Scottish Enlightenment made the country a leading intellectual centre. The twelfth-century Victorine theologian Richard of Saint-Victor is usually described as Scottish, though his origins are uncertain.