Manuscripta juridica

Ius proprium Scotiae - Practicks (general digest of law, systematic) (chronological list of cases quoted in Balfour's Practicks, from his {i}Registrum Scotiae{/i}).

The compiler(s) designed the volume to contain 112 separate year-lists of cases = one list for each year from 1469 to 1580. For many years the pertinent list is empty because no cases from that year were found. The compiler(s) went through Balfour's Practicks, page by page. For each reference to a case which they found, they entered one line in the pertinent year-list. The lines thus follow each other in the order of the edition's page numbers. Maximally 30 lines per page.

The last list, on fol. 199, has only one line: 1580/07/23 Charteris Robert v. Maxwell John, T. i. c. 26, p. 400. Remark: 'Should be probably 1480'.

Each line has six columns. The first four columns are filled in ink - with the date, names of the parties, reference to Balfour's Register, and page in the printed edition. The last two columns were provided for references to the Archives' series 'Acts and Decreets', and for remarks. In most lines these last two columns are empty. Where these columns have been used, they contain notes in pencil. In many lines there is only a 'w' - which means 'wanting' = no entry in the series 'Acts and Decreets' was found. A remark 'p' or 'r' [{i}= repeated{/i}], followed by a number, means that Balfour's Practicks quote the case a second time on the indicated page. At times it is noted that in the second quotation the reference to Balfour's Register differs from the first quotation. Yet, fol. 119 shows that this was not done consistently. The compiler(s) thus did not always check whether doubled references in Balfour correspond in their reference to the Register number.

Spot check: 1540 = 39 entries; 1541 = 63 entries; 1542 = 45 entries; 1543 = 28 entries; 1544 = 6 entries; 1545 = 13 entries; 1546 = 24 entries; 1547 = 9 entries; 1548 = 24 entries; 1549 = 24 entries; 1550 = 11 entries.

Observations which can be made in the year lists correspond to some of the findings which were independently made by William M. Gordon's article '{i}Registrum{/i}', p. 127-137 in: MacQueen, Hector L.:{i}Miscellany Four{/i}, Edinburgh 2002 (The Stair Society, vol. 49). The same author had already discussed the {i}Registrum{/i} in an earlier publication: 'The acts of the Scottish Lords of Council in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: records and reports', p. 55-71 in: Stebbings, C. (ed.), {i}Law reporting in Britain{/i}, 1995.

The year lists in the present MS show that in vol. 2 of Balfour's {i}Registrum Scotiae{/i} the chapter numbers 1-387 corresponded to a chronological series of material. The oldest case quoted from volume 2 of the {i}Registrum{/i} bears the number 2.2 (1540/4/27 = p. 373), the youngest cases mentioned, from this series, are numbered 2.386 (1576/3/19 = p. 458) and 2.387 (1577/7/4 = p. 449). Some obvious misprints have higher numbers or refer to years before 1540 - e.g. vol. 2 c.199 (allegedly 1494/7/17 = p. 263) obviously belongs to 1549/7/17. Vol. 2 c. 328 (1517/7/4 = p. 101) is an obvious misprint for vol. 1 c. 382.

The volume 1 of the {i}Registrum Scotiae{/i} was also chronologically arranged - but it jumped in chronology at several instances. The volume 1 started with chapter 1.1 = 1469/10/18 (p. 153). I deem that it comprised several distinct chronological series which overlapped in time: first series from one 1 to the fivehundreds and sixhundreds and continued in the high eighthundreds, but there was a parallel series running from the sevenhundreds into the eighthundreds and another one which ran from the elevenhundreds into the thirteenhundreds. For instance, the case 1570/3/6 (p. 207) was decided less than two months after the case 1570/1/15 (p. 463), but their numbers in the {i}Registrum Scotiae{/i} are widely distant: namely 1.880 (p. 463) on the one hand, and 1.1368 [misprint '1.1068'] (p. 207). I thus assume that records for the years in question were stored in two different locations, and that excerpts for the {i}Registrum Scotiae{/i} were therefore drawn from them at different times, or by different persons.

Further misprints of numbers of the {i}Registrum Scotiae{/i}: 1.66 (1474/7/31) is probably a misprint for 1.16; 1.12 and 1.17 (allegedly 1478) probably belong to 1474 or are misprints for 1.22 and 1.27; 1.10 (allegedly 1479) probably belongs to 1470 - etc. etc. 1.1083 (1541/3/14 = p. 112) is an obvious misprint for 1.883; 1.1380 (1546/4/6 = p. 113) misprint for 1.980

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Author(s):

• James Balfour of Pittendreich

No. of pages: (item 1)