[Twisden's Commonplace book
Contributors: Twisden, Thomas, Sir, 1602-1683.
Published: 1640
Language: roa
Number of pages: 630
Subjects: Law reports, digests, etc. -- Great Britain.; Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman.
Other titles: Digest of cases 1558-1660.
Notes: Baker, J.H.  English legal manuscripts in the U.S.A., II, 357 ("Law MS. A.C. 2")
Ms. (partly holograph?)
In Law French.
Title from Baker. Previously cataloged with title Digest of cases 1558-1660.
Cases in common law from the superior courts at Westminster, under alphabetically arranged topics, A-E only; the F-W volume is ms. 5016 in Harvard Law School.
Text begins: Abatem[en]t d'l br[ef]e. 1. D[eu]x executors p[?]t debt un devy.
The codex was produced in two stages: it was at first a copy, professionally made ca. 1640?, of a digest covering the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I; another hand, not one of a professional scribe, continued adding under single topics new cases through the Commonwealth period and the beginning of Charles II's rule.
Contents of an unsigned autobiographical "Memorandum" inserted at end allow identification of its author as Sir Thomas Twisden; he may also be the author/inscriber of the post-Revolution parts or even the author of the whole digest.
Previous owner: Sir Thomas Twisden. Accessioned in LC in 1941 (LL 618565).
Written no doubt in England.
Foliation of leaves 1-586 (with 299 and 392 erroneously duplicated) is that of the ca.-1640 copy; its leaves 56, 87-94, 102, 106-7, 148, and 234 are missing, with text losses.
The Commonwealth continuator made use of blank or partly blank leaves of the original sequence; additionally, new gatherings of unfoliated leaves were added after the original leaves 27, 36, 134, 266, 339, 377, 389, 488, and 586; the sum total of bound numbered and unnumbered leaves in the codex is now approximately 630 (many blank).
Laid-in are a number of pieces with notes, cases, etc., some in the hand of the second writer of the digest.
"Le Table" (contents/index): leaves [588-589].