David Laing, eminent historian, antiquary and bibliographer, was the second son of the Edinburgh bookseller William Laing (1764-1832) and his wife Helen Kirk, and was born on 20 April 1793. He was educated at the Canongate Grammar School and later on attended Greek classes at the University of Edinburgh. At the age of fourteen, he became apprenticed to his father who, at the time, was the only bookseller in Edinburgh dealing in foreign literature. Laing was able, occasionally, to travel abroad in search of rare or curious books. In 1821, he became a partner in his father's business and throughout his life he was an avid collector of manuscripts and rescued many from destruction. The first published work of his own was Auctarium Bibliothecae Edinburgenae sive Catalogus Librorum quos Gulielmus Drummondus ab Hawthornden D.D.Q. Anno 1627 (1815). Among other works, Laing also reprinted Thomas Craig's Epithalamium on the marriage of Darnley and Mary Stuart (1821). When Sir Walter Scott founded the Bannatyne Club in 1823 for the printing of material and tracts relating to Scottish history and literature, Laing - a friend of Scott's - became Secretary of the Club and chief organiser until its dissolution in the 1860s. Laing was also associated with the Abbotsford Club, the Spalding Club, and the Wodrow Society, each of which had been set up for the publication of manuscripts and for the revival of old texts. When the keepership of the Advocates' Library fell vacant in 1818, Laing was a candidate but was not elected. He became Keeper of the Library to the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, a post which he occupied from 1837 until his death. On his appointment to the post, he gave up his business as a bookseller and disposed of the stock in a public sale. Laing died at Portobello, in Edinburgh, on 18 October 1878.
Scope and Contents
The manuscript contains the complete text of the Vulgate. The order of books of the Old Testament is unusual: chapter 15 of Leviticus is found at the end of the book of Esther with an explanatory
rubric; Lamentations and Baruch precede Jeremiah instead of coming after it; the Letter of Jeremiah,...
Contents
The manuscript contains the text of the four Gospels according to the Vulgate.Prologues: start on f. 1v. They consists of three prologues: the first is the letter Saint Jerome wrote to Pope Damasus and which acts as prologue to all four Gospels, starting with the words Novum opus facere me cogis (ff. 1v-4r); the second prologue, taken from Saint Jerome's 'Commentary to the Gospel of Saint Matthew', begins with the words ...
Contents
The manuscript is a 15th-century composite containing works relating to virgin saints. It is German or Dutch. The works contained within it are detailed separately below.ff.1r-40v: Revelatio Nova Itineris et Passionis Undecim Milium Virginum Martyrum (The Passion of the Eleven Thousand Virgins). This text is related to Saint Ursula.ff.40v-72v: Vita et Legenda Beate Katherine Virginis (The Life and...
Scope and Contents
Book of Hours in German from the 15th century.Kalendar: starts on f. 2r. Contains commemorations of Saints and Martyr, and other festivities (the most important are written in red). Its content points to the area of Cologne.30 January: Aldegunt iunffer (Aldegunda Virgin, hermitess and Benedectine abbess, from Hainaut); 1 March: Swicbertus, Bp. (Swithbert Bishop, founded a...
Contents
The manuscript is a Book of Hours and Prayer Book from the 15th century. It originated in Germany, possibly in Schleswig. All the prayers are for a masculine owner.The Kalendar starts on f.1r. Some entries in the Kalendar that may reflect the manuscript’s provenance are as follows. 30 January: Aldegonde, Virgin; 17 March: Gertrude, Virgin; 3 June: Erasmus, Martyr; 4 July, Odalrici (Ulrich), Martyr; 8 July: Kilian, Martyr; 11 July: Ketillus, Confessor (of...
Contents
A 15th century autograph manuscript (the author of the work is also the scribe of the manuscript) from the Carthusian Charterhouse at Erfurt. The author and scribe is Johannes de Indagine, who was a Carthusian monk and prior connected to Erfurt Charterhouse and other Carthusian houses in Germany in the fifteenth century. The manuscript includes a collection of commentaries on parts of the bible, including Paul's letters, the Song of Songs, and other parts of the old and new testaments....
Contents
Contains twenty-five texts, in many different hands. This manuscript is German, from the Monastery of Saints Peter and Paul at Erfurt. It was composed in the 15th century. The texts are various theological tracts in Latin. Some of the sections are divided by leather markers. The contents are as follows:Flyleaves: A small slip of paper pasted in at the beginning has a short note of contents. Some other manuscripts have been used in the binding, including part of an 11th-century...
Contents
Contains twenty-nine texts, all in the same hand. The collection is a curious one, and contains at the beginning and end a number of curious proverbs (copied in full by Catherine Borland, see Appendix IV, pp. 335-6 of her catalogue). The end papers have been taken from an English manuscript of the early 15th century, and contain interesting fragments of English religious verse (also copied in full by Catherine Borland, see Appendix IV, pp. 334-5 of her catalogue).The manuscript...
Contents
MS 138 contains many small texts and fragments bound together, by different hands. This manuscript belonged to the Carthusian monastery at Erfurt, and seems to have been compiled initially in the mid-15th century. The evidence of the inclusion of various texts in different hands indicates that this volume was taken up and added to by different inhabitants of the monastery at Erfurt. The texts are described separately, but are generally quite fragmentary and difficult to...
