The Laws of Medieval Scotland: Legal compilations from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

Edited by Dr Alice Taylor, The Laws of Medieval Scotland: Legal compilations from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, brings together collections of Scotland’s ‘auld laws’ in an important new edition featuring both the original Latin texts and translations of them.

Dr Taylor also describes and comments on each of the twenty-one manuscripts of the ‘auld laws’ held in archives ranging from Scotland to Madrid in a comprehensive catalogue. Each codex’s basic material includes an introduction to the manuscript and its relevance to the edition, languages, date or approxiamate date, physical description, provenance, a bibliography referencing works related to the manuscript, contents, and notable points.

From the Introduction:

‘This edition…aims to provide authoritative editions of some of the earliest legal compiliations to have survived from Scotland: Leges Scocie, Capitula Assesarum et Statutorum Domini Dauid Regis Scocie, and the so-called “Ayr Miscellany”. These are joined by two other compilations attributed to the kings of the central Middle Ages: the Leges Willelmi Regis, purporting to the the “laws of King Willliam” (1165-1214), and the Statuta Regis Alexandri, the “laws of King Alexander” (Alexander II, 1214-49), as well as chapters which make up the (in context) famous text known as Leges inter Brettos et Scotos.’ (p. 3)