LITMIR.BIZ

      [print edition page xx]

      [print edition page xxi]

       EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES

      Text

      This edition of Historical Law-Tracts is based on the edition published ten years after Kames’s death:

      Historical Law-Tracts. The Fourth Edition. With Additions and Corrections. Edinburgh: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, London; and Bell & Bradfute, and W. Creech, Edinburgh. 1792.

      This edition incorporates Kames’s final alterations. It also incorporates the page numbers of the 1792 addition, inserted within angle brackets in the main body of the text.

      Earlier editions are as follows:

      Historical Law-Tracts. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Printed for A. Millar, at Buchanan’s Head in the Strand; and A. Kincaid, and J. Bell, Edinburgh. 1758.

      Historical Law-Tracts. The Second Edition. Edinburgh: Printed by A. Kincaid, His Majesty’s Printer, for A. Millar in the Strand, London; and A. Kinkaid and J. Bell, Edinburgh. 1761.

      Historical Law-Tracts. The Third Edition. With Additions and Corrections. Edinburgh: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, London; and J. Bell and W. Creech, Edinburgh. 1776.

      Major differences between the 1792 and earlier editions are indicated in footnotes to the text. The 1758 and 1761 editions are mostly identical, as are the 1776 and 1792 editions.

      None of these four editions has the author’s name on its title page. The table of contents was added in 1776. In 1758 and 1761, the title of every tract apart from Tract XIV begins with “History of.…” Thus in these

      [print edition page xxii]

      two editions, Tract I is “History of Criminal Law,” Tract II is “History of Promises and Covenants,” and so on.

      Annotation

      Full references to all works cited by Kames are provided in the bibliography. Most of Kames’s footnote references (shorter ones indicated by symbols: *, †, ‡, etc.; longer ones indicated by Arabic numerals within parentheses) are easy enough to make sense of. Where this is not the case, sufficient information (inserted within double square brackets) has been added to enable the reader to identify the passage that Kames refers to. A small number of footnotes (indicated by Arabic numerals) have been added to explain legal and historical matters likely not to be readily comprehensible to the nonspecialist.

      Kames frequently cites Scottish and English, and British, statute law. He also regularly cites decisions of the Court of Session, and a variety of bodies of ancient British and continental European law. These citations can be pursued using the following reference works:

      Statute Law of Scotland

      For the period beginning with the accession of James I in 1406 Kames would have used:

      Glendook, Sir Thomas Murray of. Laws and Acts of Parliament made by King James the First, […], King Charles the Second who now presently reigns, Kings and Queens of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1681.

      The standard reference work is now:

      The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, A.D. MCXXIV–MDCCVII. Ed. Cosmo Innes and Thomas Thomson. 12 vols. London, 1814–52.

      A complete list of acts of the Scottish Parliament to 1707, including a chronological table of statutes from 1424 to 1707, is provided by the database Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707: http://www.rps.ac.uk

      [print edition page xxiii]

      Statute Law of England and Great Britain

      Kames would have used one or other of the successive editions of Statutes at Large, a list of statutes ratified by the English Parliament beginning with Magna Carta. E.g.,

      The Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta, to the Thirtieth Year of George the Second, Inclusive. Ed. John Cay. 6 vols. London, 1758.

      Ancient British and European Law

      Kames’s source for his citations from the laws of the Angli and Thuringi, Bavarians, Burgundians, Longobards, Ripuarians, Saxons, and Visigoths, and from the Salic Law, was almost certainly:

      Codex Legum Antiquarum. Frankfurt, 1613.

      The definitive modern editions of these laws are to be found in the volumes of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Hanover, Berlin, Munich: 1819–).

      Kames’s sources for his citations from ancient British law were:

      Lambard, William. Archaionomia, sive, De Priscis Anglorum Legibus Libri. London, 1568. [Cited by Kames as “Lambard’s Collection.”]

      Wilkins, David. Leges Anglo-Saxonicae Ecclesiasticae et Civiles. London, 1721.

      Identifying the particular laws which Kames refers to in these collections is relatively straightforward, and there seemed no need to supplement footnotes containing such references.

      Decisions of the Court of Session

      Decisions of the Court of Session are most easily consulted via the website of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/

      [print edition page xxiv]

      Legal Terminology

      A comprehensive glossary of Latin, Scots, and other legal terms is provided below, pp. 301–31.