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 manuscript contains a Flemish psalter in Latin, written in the 13th century in Flanders. The Kalendar at the beginning is missing January and December, and is in general much mutilated. There are many illuminations, especially in the first sections, including 3 folios with illuminations after the Kalendar. An Invitatory, Venite exultemus, was later inserted by another hand on f. 9r. The Service of the Dead ends abruptly on f. 157v before some folios that...
Contents
This manuscript contains a psalter of Roman Use with anthems, written in Latin in the early 16th century, and of Italian origin. The book is of a considerable size and its binding is particularly interesting, as it is a decorated with brass pins, studs, and other different shapes. Some of the hymns at the beginning and at the end are incomplete. It has several vellum page markers for its different sections.ContentsHymns (Roman...
Contents
Contains the text of the Gospels, but it is incomplete at the beginning.Matthew’s Gospel (+ epilogue; missing I.1-VII.6 & XXVII.8-XXVIII.7): τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον ἅγιον εὐαγγέλιον: f. 1-73 & 312-319 (originally in order; quire δ' misplaced). Beginning: “...τοὺς μαργαρίτας ὑμῶν…” (VII.6) to “…εἶπεν ἕτι ζῶν·” (XXVII.63). End: “…αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε· ἰδού…” (XXVIII.7) to “…τοῦ αἰῶνος· ἀμήν.” (XXVIII.20/end). Unknown edition.Mark’s Gospel (+...
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...
The manuscript is an early copy of the original manuscript containing the Ritual Ordinance (Typike Diatheke, in Greek) written by Neophytus, a monk who laid down a set of monastic rules.
Contents
Manuscript of Robert Grosseteste's Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs produced in Italy in the 15th century. Robert Grosseteste was bishop of Lincoln 1235-1253. He is better known for his scientific treatises in Latin and French. The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs is a translation into Latin from the original apocryphal Greek text. According to Matthew Paris (Hist. Maj.,sub. anno 1242,...
Contents
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...
Scope and Contents
MS 183, the Royal Letter Book, is an English late medieval manuscript containing contemporary copies of 374 letters, most of which belong to the reigns of Edward III (1327-1377) and Richard II (1377-1397). The manuscript further contains a few copies of letters from the reign of Henry IV (1399-1413) and the copy of a single letter from the reign of Henry V (1413-1422), as well as several letters between other correspondents. The overall date range of the...
Dates:
late 14th-early 15th century; c 1335-c 1417 (dates of the original letters)
Contents
The manuscript contains the gospel of Saint John according to the text of the Vulgate and a set of glosses [i.e. annotations and comments] to the whole text. These include both marginal and interlinear glosses. The text is not complete, but ends at John 19:, verse 36.The gospel is preceded by the monarchian prologue, so called because it relates to the monarchian doctrine, which saw God as one person. It accompanies several extant copies of the Vulgate, although its text is not...
Contents
Juvenal was an early second-century AD Roman poet. Although little else is known about his life, he is credited with having written sixteen satires. When first published, the satires were divided into five books, and in them Juvenal criticised the beliefs and morals of his contemporaries. Juvenal addresses many of the concerns in second-century Rome in his poems, including the tensions between non-Roman social climbers and Roman citizens, the preservation of existing social class, and the...
