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PUBLICATIONS

The Society’s latest work, Scotland Under Jus Commune, by Gero Dolezalek, Chair of Civil Law, University of Aberdeen, published in three volumes in May 2010, is a census of manuscripts of legal literature in Scotland, mainly between 1500 and 1660. The work catalogues and gives details of a large number of Scots law manuscripts from a period when relatively few legal works made their way into print. It shows that a vast amount of the legal sources and culture of the period has been submerged out of the view of most researchers by remaining in manuscript and it provides a crucial set of tools by which this material may be recognised. The Census thus looks likely to provide the basis for the next generation’s worth of research on a crucial period for Scots law.

AGM and ANNUAL LECTURE

The Society’s 74th AGM was held on 7 November 2009, when the annual lecture was given by Professor Michael Lobban Professor of Legal History, Queen Mary, University of London School of Law. The 75th AGM will be held in Edinburgh on Saturday 6 November 2010, when the annual lecture will be given by Dr John Ford, Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. Further details will be announced in September 2010.

The Stair Society is registered as a Scottish Charity (number SCO15283). It was founded in 1934 to encourage the study and advance the knowledge of the history of Scots Law by the publication of original documents and by the reprinting and editing of works of sufficient rarity or importance. Since 1934 it has produced nearly 60 volumes, aiming to publish a volume each year (although this is not guaranteed). At its Annual Meeting each November a distinguished Lecturer is invited to give an address, which is followed by lunch for members and their guests. In making knowledge of the past readily accessible and fulfilling its objectives, the Society depends on the support of Scottish lawyers, both advocates and solicitors, and on legal historians throughout the world, as well as upon libraries and institutions.