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
This major text contained in this manuscript is Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages, which was probably originally written around the start of the 7th century. It is accompanied by other related works in this manuscript, which dates from the 12th or 13th century and was probably made in Lucelle, France. The contents are as follows:ff. 1r-144v: Etymologiae by Isidore...
Contents
This manuscript was created in 1459 by a German scribe, Marquard Rode, in Paris. It contains versions of philosophical texts complied by Antonius Andreas and based on the work of Duns Scotus. Antonius Andreas, or Antonio Andrés, was born around 1280 and died around 1320; he was a Spanish Franciscan theologian, and a pupil of Duns Scotus. Duns Scotus, or John Duns, was an important philosopher-theologian, originally from Scotland. The last section seems to be a later addition.The...
Contents
This 15th century manuscript is a copy of an astronomical text known as the Theorica Planetarum, which was incredibly popular in the medieval period, and survives in over 200 manuscript copies. There has been much debate on the authorship of this text, and it has been attributed to Robert Grosseteste, and also Gerard of Cremona. However, it seems most likely that this text, of which MS 128 is a copy, is the work of an anonymous teacher of astronomy from about...
Contents
MS 133 is intriguing, as it seems to be the unique surviving manuscript of Leonini of Padua's Decas Loyca, although it is still only a part of the full text. Augustinian friar Leonino of Padua is first mentioned in 1332, holding a post at an annual meeting of the Augustinian Order in Venice. By 1360 he had become a Doctor of Theology as was teaching in Padua. His Decas Loyca was written probably in the late 1350s, in which he...
Scope and Contents
MS 136 is a volume of works by the fifteenth-century London schoolmaster, John Seward (or Seguarde). Seward wrote about a dozen short treatises on Latin prosody during the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V, and these works were primarly known and examined in a manuscript of Merton College, Oxford, thought to be unique. However, examination of MS 136 reveals that the Merton manuscript is a slightly later, and finer copy of the original text contained in MS 136. In fact, MS 136 is most probably...
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
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...
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...
Contents
MS 144 contains the texts by early Christian monk and theologian, John Cassian, in the same hand.ff. 1r-45v: 'De institutis coenobiorum', by Johannus Cassianus [John Cassian]ff. 45v-103v: incomplete 'Collationes patrum in scetica eremo', by Johannus Cassianus [John Cassian]The texts are described separately, under MS 144/ff. 1r-45v; MS 144/ff. 45v-103v. Writing Written in a clear Gothic hand. There are...
