Ecosse

1791 · Best.-Nr. 73934 — 1791. Scottish Law After Union: Court of Session Decisions 1735-1744 Scotland. Court of Session. Decisions of the Court of Session From the Month of November MDCCXXXV To The Month of July MDCCXLIV. Edinburgh: Printed for Bell and Bradfute James Simpson et al. 1791. 464 pp. Folio 12" x 7-1/2". Modern library buckram gilt institution name to boards red and black lettering pieces and gilt institution name to spine endpapers renewed. Light rubbing to extremities. Library stamps to edges preliminaries and rear endleaves. Light toning to interior "R399" in an early hand and early owner signature John Pollok to title page. $150. First and only edition. This substantial folio preserves a sequence of decisions of Scotland's supreme civil court during the mature decades following the Acts of Union 1707 a formative period in which Scots law though operating within a unified British state maintained its distinctive doctrinal identity. The Court of Session-established in the sixteenth century and central to the development of national jurisprudence-continued in these years to articulate a mixed legal tradition drawing upon Roman civil law authority alongside indigenous customary and feudal principles. Collections of "Decisions" such as the present volume belong to the early and only partially systematized tradition of Scottish law reporting often compiled for the use of advocates and practitioners rather than issued under formal judicial auspices. They constitute an important record of precedent before the standardization of reporting in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The cases recorded here reflect the core business of the court in this period including disputes concerning heritable property succession entail and the expanding sphere of commercial relations in an Atlantic economy. The imprint of Bell & Bradfute among the principal Edinburgh legal publishers of the later eighteenth century situates the volume within the professional print culture that sustained the Scottish bar. The early ownership signature to the title page may be that of John Pollok 1858-1938 Procurator Fiscal for Selkirkshire suggesting later use within the Borders legal community. ESTC N6864. unknown