New featured item: Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiae Thesaurus

James Anderson, Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiae Thesaurus, 1739

James Anderson (1662–1728) was a Scottish historiographer and antiquary. Born in Edinburgh in 1662, the son of a Presbyterian minister, he studied law at the University of Edinburgh from 1677 until 1680. As a lawyer, he was required to study old charters and documents, and became interested in antiquarian scholarship, eventually abandoning the legal profession altogether. He first gained notoriety from his involvement in the polemics over the Act of Settlement (1701), and was granted funding  for his Diplomata Scotiae, which involved the collection and engraving of all available medieval Scottish charters and seals. It was his life’s work, and was finished and published after his death.

To read all about our copy and its history, see our newest featured item by Dr Esther Meijers on our website.