Scottish Court of Session Papers
The University of Virginia Law Library's collection of Scottish Court of Session Papers consists of printed and formerly bound case materials presented before the Court of Session, the highest civil court in Scotland, from 1757 to 1834. As a court of appeal and of first instance, the Court of Session in this period held jurisdiction over contract and commercial cases, matters of succession and land ownership, divorce proceedings, intellectual property and copyright disputes, and contested political elections. The UVA collection includes approximately 3,200 cases containing approximately 10,000 printed petitions, answers, replies, and case summaries, many of which have contemporary annotations. Supplemental case materials appended to these documents include maps, building plans, and printed copies of correspondence, wills, financial accounts, and census reports.
Please Note: You have reached Beta SCOS. We are in the process of migrating the database to a new project site, which will be released in Spring 2019. Content subject to change at any time. Digitization is in progress and not all document images may be available.
Collection Catalog
In January 2015, the UVA Law Library began work on a comprehensive item-level catalog of this collection accessible online. Ultimately, we hope to digitize our entire Session Papers collection and make this digital content, along with all metadata and OCR text, freely available to researchers. The catalog of cases and case documents below represent a work in progress. Project staff regularly update this inventory. For further information about this Session Papers collection, to request free digital copies of records in the UVA collection, or to schedule a research appointment at the UVA Law Library, contact Special Collections.