The Acts of Alexander III King of Scots 1249 -1286

Regesta Regum Scottorum Vol 4 Part 1

Edited by Cynthia J. Neville, Grant Simpson

Hardback

£150.00

Ebook (app) i

£24.99

Ebook (PDF) i

£24.99

Brings together 330 legal documents from the reign of King Alexander III of Scotland

This volume contains the full texts of 175 acts issued under the seal of King Alexander III, together with notes on a further 155 'lost acts' that survive only in notices. These acts, many of which have never been published before, have been collected from a variety of archives in Scotland, England, Belgium and France.

Contents

INTRODUCTION Analysis of the Acts of Alexander III I. Diplomatic analysis II. Classification and subject matter III. The hands IV. The king's V. Place dates in the acts of Alexander III Appendix I. The Inventory of 29 September 1282 Methods of editing List of sources Notes to the Introduction THE ACTS OF ALEXANDER III Dated acts, full texts, Numbers 1-165 Undated acts, full texts, Numbers 166-175 Calendar of lost acts, Numbers 176-330 Index of Persons and Places Map of places at which Alexander III's acts were issued

Reviews

Decades of meticulous scholarship here make accessible for the first time records that throw new light on government, land and people in medieval Scotland. This outstanding volume transforms our understanding of a reign that has long been recognised as pivotal in the development of our nation.'
– Richard Oram, University of Stirling

Decades of meticulous scholarship here make accessible for the first time records that throw new light on government, land and people in medieval Scotland. This outstanding volume transforms our understanding of a reign that has long been recognised as pivotal in the development of our nation.Richard Oram, Professor of Medieval and Environmental History, University of Stirling
– Richard Oram, University of Stirling

There is much to commend it: one gains a clear impression of the increasing sophistication of the late thirteenth-century royal household and the changing societal trends which increased both the proportion of secular recipients of grants and the variety of document forms demanded of the chancery… There are excellent concise analyses of the various document types and subject matters, palaeography, sigillography and dating, within which headings are enfolded a wealth of valuable detail about subjects as diverse as the scribes themselves (and hence the composition of the chancery) and their scribal habits, and the legal position of the king and his advisors during the minority…It would be a niggardly reviewer who would do other than heartily applaud the editors and publisher for this splendid addition to a series which is so vital to anyone with a serious interest in medieval Scotland.
– Norman H. Reid, The Scottish Historical Review

About the Author

Cynthia J. Neville is the George Munro Professor of History at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. She has published extensively on various aspects of the legal and social history of the Anglo-Scottish border lands in the period 1200-1500 and on the social and cultural encounter between Gaels and Europeans in medieval Scotland. She is the author of Violence, Custom and Law: The Anglo-Scottish Border Lands in the Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh University Press, 1998) and Native Lordship in Medieval Scotland: The Earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox, c.1140-1365 (2005).

Grant G. Simpson, formerly of Aberdeen University, is the author of many books and articles, including Scottish handwriting, 1150-1650: An introduction to the reading of documents, and is a Fellow of the Societies of Antiquaries of Scotland and of London.