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.
Contents
MS 137 is a volume on Latin grammar. It contains the first sixteen books on the topic by 6th-century author, Priscian of Caesarea. Priscian's work contains eighteen books, based on earlier works by Herodian and Apollonius. Early medieval scholars in the eighth and ninth centuries produced abridgements of Priscian's original eighteen books. Many manuscripts of these abridgments exists, and they characteristically contain only the first sixteen books of Priscian's original text. This medieval...
Contents
Contains seven texts, all in the same hand.ff. 1r-7v: the beginning of the 'Decretum Gratiani,' by Gratianff. 8r-53r: 'Summa introductoria' by Bonaguida de Arezzoff. 53v-54r : A shortened English Kalendar (not Sarum)ff. 56r-67v: 'Practica sive usus dictaminis' by Lawrence of Aquileiaff. 68r-88v: Book VIII of 'Durandi Rationale Divinorum Officiorum' by Guillaume Durandff. 90r-103r: 'Speculum ecclesiae' by Cardinal Hugo de...
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MS 148 is a copy of a reforming text by Pope Benedict XII, known as 'Constituta totius Ordinis canonicorum regularium Ordinis S. Augustini'. Benedict XII became pope in 1334, and occupied the role until his death in 1342. Pope during the'Avignon papacy' period, Benedict was the third pope to rule from Avignon (in France), rather than Rome. Pope Benedict was a former Cistercian abbot, and was known for his religious strictness and austerity. When he became pope, he turned his attention to...
Contents
This manuscript contains a list of medieval statutes and other laws issued by the Kingdom of England before the development of the English Parliament, and a Registrum Brevium, which is collection of writs used by legal practitioners, especially in the late Middle Ages.ContentsStatutes: start on f. 1r and ends on f. 29v, and contains the following statutes: Magna Carta,...
This manuscript was lost during the Second World War. It was a 14th-century English manuscript in vellum, written in Latin and in French, which contained a list of medieval statutes and other laws issued by the Kingdom of England before the development of the English Parliament. A more detailed description can be found in Catherine Borland's catalogue (1916): MS 157 (external link).
Scope and Contents
In medieval England, common law descended from writs issued by the royal chancery. These writs were compiled in a volume referred to as the Registrum Brevium (Register of Writs), the earliest surviving manuscript of which exists from 1227. These texts of writs was continually modified and updated, and the Registrum Brevium came to be one of the most common kind of legal manuscript in Medieval England. MS 158 is a pocket-sized...
Contents
Contains three texts, and tables subsequently inserted into the volume. The fly leaves (ff. i-ii) containing the tables are by later hands, while the rest of the manuscript is by a single 12th-century hand with only the exception of f. 72, which is written by a different but contemporary 12th-century hand.The tables on f. ir and f. iiv list three additional texts, now missing, or perhaps never copied: 'Liber urinarum a voce theophili' (Theophilus Protospatharius's, also known as...
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MS 168 is a 14th-century copy of Rosa medicinae (also known by the name Rosa anglica) by English physician John Gaddesden, written c. 1313. Gaddesden trained as a doctor at Oxford between 1307-1316, and embarked on a successful career as the first major medieval medical scholar to have trained entirely in England. An indication of his reputation, he seems to have treated a son of Edward I of England for smallpox (perhaps...
Contents
Contains six medical texts, and recipes inserted at a later date. The whole volume is written by the hand of Robert of Sherburn, with the exception of the recipes, written by Francis Cox.ff. 1v-2v: A Tabula to the volume, in the hand of Robert of Sherburn, and an ilustration of a physician and patient (described under 'Scope and Contents-Illumination').Ff. 3r-37r, ff. 41r-44r: 'Expositio cum questionibus super textu Rasis in...
Contents
Contains six texts, possibly written by two hands. The first four texts belong to a group of Latin textbooks largely used in schools during the Middle Ages, collectively known as Auctores octo morales ('Eight moral authors'). Catherine Borland erroneously attributes the second, third and fourth text (Liber Faceti docens mores hominum, Liber parabolarum and Liber...
