Manuscripta juridica

Ordo iudiciorum Scotiae - Treatise 'By proces is here meaned' ("Form of process") .

[{i}Title page:{/i}] The form of process before the Lords of Council and Session, observed in advocations, ordinary actions, suspensions. ... Written for the use of the students in Spotswood's College of Law, by John Spotiswood of that ilk, advocate. Edinburgh 1711 [{i}copy at Aberdeen, UL, shelfmark pi 3479 Spo f, incomplete because all leaves after pag. 162 have been torn out{/i}].

An older version of this text is preserved in MS Aberdeen, UL, 144. There the sample texts of documents bear the year date 1702 - most probably because this was the year in which the author dictated the text, compare the advertisement in the {i}Letter to the reader{/i}, copied here below. The printed edition, in contrast, inserts the year date 1709 (pag. 17, 21, 40) or 1710 (pag. 136) - most probably because the author updated the text in that year, for publication.

[{i}Letter to the reader:{/i}] 'It is more than nine years since this treatise was composed ...' [{i}thus in 1701 or early in 1702{/i}]

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Author(s):

• John Spotswood

No. of pages: (item 1)

Rubric: The form of proces befor the Lords of Counsell and Sessione, conform to the present practique

Incipit:

• By proces is here mean'd the order and divers steps or procedure of (parties) pursuer and defender befor a judge, from the first intenting of an action to the final determination of the cause. Process is either ordinary or summar. Ordinary, or, as called in our practique, 'process via ordinaria', is when causes, or (which is the same) when actions are cognosced in the full and solemn order of the law.

  [{i}Chapter headings within the work:{/i}] 1 The form of process in advocations (pag. 5). 2 The form of process in ordinary actions (pag. 34). 3 The form of process in suspension (pag. 122). 4 Of protestations for remedy in law (pag. 150).24