Manuscripta juridica

Decisiones curiae supremae Scotiae - Practicks 1550-1577 .

The present MS has at times fuller parties' names than MS Orr, and more dates.

The MS contains two overlapping partial series of items from Maitland's Practicks. The history of the composition of the volume is evidenced by the above mentioned older numbering in ink which runs here from 48 to 73, in one quire of paper consisting of thirteen folded sheets, with items numbered 1-249 (last item dated 1566/1/29: 'Anent the action betuix the bishop of Sanct Androis having the regalitie within the bounds of the same, and the kings advocat ...'). The old numbering is then interrupted by 37 leaves (= fol. 74 - [110]) of which only the first six are explicitely numbered (74-80, the numbers' ink differs from the ink before). The old numbering then resumes, with folio numbers 74-108. This corresponds to the fact that the handwriting of fol. 48-73, in very neat small characters, also resumes after fol. [110], and so does the numbering of items = from 250 onward (dated 1565/3/17 [corresponding to modernised date 1566/3/17, as the scribe justly observes there]). It is thus obvious that the 37 leaves after fol. 73 were only added to fol. 48-73 at a later time, although taken from the same type of paper and thus probably not much younger.

The thirty-seven inserted leaves show various types of handwriting. All hands write considerably larger than fol. 48r-73v and after fol. [110]. The first seven folios are numbered in continuation to the preceding ones, 74-80, but then the folio numbering ceases. The items' numbering, in contrast, is at first not continued at all. It only resumes on fol. 80v with number 291 - which rather ought to be '285' if the items were counted in continuation after item 249. The text, however, regularly continues the contents of the preceding folios 48r-73v and breaks off at the end of fol. [110v] in item 440 [{i}the break corresponds to a break in Adv.MS.24.1.8{/i}]. Fol. [110] bears a possessor's mark saec. XVII: 'David Law boucht this buik' - which suggests that, in those days, this leaf was the last leaf of the volume.

I tend to explain the irregularity as follows: in origin the text ran from fol. 48-108 (old numbering). Thereafter the leaves 74-108 were mislaid or in some other way separated from the preceding leaves. For this reason the possessor of the volume, which was now incomplete, employed several scribes to replace the missing leaves. The scribes did so, till what is now fol. [110]. Thereafter the mislaid leaves 74-108 were rediscovered and were re-united to the volume.

I have compiled a detailed list of the contents of the entire series of items, but it is too long to be published here

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Author(s):

• Richard Maitland of Lethington

No. of pages: Fol. 48r-73v (first series of numbering), fol. [74] - [110] (second series of numbering), f ol. 74r-108v (continuation of first series of numbering):

Rubric: 'Posterior classis Practicarum Regni Scotiae' [{i}as in Adv.MS.24.1.8{/i}]