ABSTRACT
Biographers have differed sharply in the interpretation of John Knox's relationship to the scholastic tradition in which he had been trained. Leaving these broader considerations aside, it is time to turn from the scholastic to the canonistic aspect of the problem. To be trained in that law however basic and practice-directed the training may have been - was certainly to have some degree of contact with one of the great monuments of scholastic learning. In principle, it seems, a would-be notary should have served a five-year apprenticeship, under the authority, formally, of the diocesan bishop. Knox in the 1530s, however, may have heard it with less sensitive ears or read it with the less censorious eyes of an apprentice concerned to master the rules of his trade. The scholastic ecclesiology Knox could have encountered in Mair would obviously have differed widely from the position he was eventually to adopt.
