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Origins
of minute books
The term 'minute book' is a name given to
two distinct types of historical record in Scotland. The first is
a record of a meeting of a corporate body (such as a local authority
committee or private company). The second type of minute book is
a digest of a legal register or court record. The origins of both
lie in the medieval Latin term 'minuta scriptura', meaning 'small
writing', especially applied to the first draft made by a clerk
of court proceedings (a more modern term is 'scroll minutes'). These
would be used later as an aid to finding a full entry in a register
after the full 'official' version of the court business had been
compiled (in the form of an act roll, register, or book of sederunt).
By the 17th century the term 'minute books' was used in relation
to the official record of the meetings of corporate bodies, such
as commissioners of supply and kirk sessions, but separate minute
books for legal registers and court records (either in the form
of drafts from which official act books etc were compiled, or as
digests compiled from official records to allow quicker searching)
continued to be made by court officials.
Minute books to registers and court records
Examples of these survive from the 15th century.
The most important, and frequently used for historical and legal
purposes, are minute books to registers of sasines and registers
of deeds. Their value is derived from two characteristics: (a) they
may contain references to documents not recorded in the full register
(b) they are easier to search through than the full register (especially
if the latter is not indexed) For further information about registers
of sasines and registers of deeds go to the National Archives of
Scotland website or read the Guide to the National Archives of
Scotland see below under Bibliography and Links.
Minute books of corporate bodies
Minute books of this type survive from the
16th century in Scotland, but large series of minute books are a
19th and 20th century phenomenon, due to the proliferation of local
and central government and commercial companies. Minute books usually
begin with the date and place of meeting, and a list of those present.
This is called 'the sederunt', and another term for a minute book
is 'sederunt book', which is more commonly applied to court records.
A specific type of legal record in Scotland is the Trust Sederunt
Book (to see a separate Knowledge Base entry on Trust Sederunt Books click
here). Thereafter the style can range
from quite terse (merely recording formal decisions taken) to voluminous
(summarising discussions among those present with other documents,
such as reports and legal papers engrossed). To see examples of
some of the most important types of minutes used by Scottish historians
click on one of the following entries:
Kirk
Session minutes
School
Board minutes
Commissioners of Supply Minutes
Parish Council/Parochial Board Minutes
Board
of Supervision and Local Government Board minutes
Police
Committee/Commissioners minutes
Bibliography and Links
Useful books are Guide to the National
Archives of Scotland (Stair Society, Edinburgh, 1996) Ann Whetstone,
Scottish County Government in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
(Edinburgh, 1981). For further details on the registers of sasines
and deeds go to the
National Archives of Scotland website.
Contributors
Andrew Jackson, Robin Urquhart (both SCAN);
Olive Geddes (National Library of Scotland).
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1.
How can school board minutes help me trace the title to a school
building?
2.
What is a scroll minute book?
3.
Do parochial board/parish council minutes contain information about
individual paupers?
4.
What does the word 'sederunt' mean?
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