Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

102 Legal History in the Making
Scottish Graduates at Netherlands Universities, 1575-1800
(Figures in brackets refer to the number of Scottish law and medical
doctorates)
1575-1600
1601-1625
1626-1650
1651-1675
1676-1700
1
3
3
14
42
L
(1)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
M
(-)
(1)
(2)
(13)
(41)
1701-1725
1726-1750
1751-1775
1776-1800
* In the period 1726-50 two degrees of Phil. Dr. et A.L.M.
40
16
13
13
L
(1)
(-)
(-)
(-)
M
(39)
(14)*
(13)
(13)
The total comes out at 145 Scots taking academic degrees, seven of whom took
a law doctorate and 136 a medical one. When we remember that around 750
Scotsmen studied law and about 500 medicine, the discrepancy between the
faculties becomes very clear. Scottish divinity students (about 130 of them
were enrolled at Leyden alone) did not take a degree at all; 29 of the jurists
barely one per cent obtained a doctorate. 30
In fact the situation of the jurists was even sadder. Let us examine the seven
doctors of law more closely. The first was lacobus Ramsaeus, Scotus, Logices
Professor extraordinarius. On 20 March 1593 he received - at Leyden - the
degree of doctor iuris honoris causa. 31 Joannes Mordisonius (John Murdison
or Murdisson) was next to graduate, at the same university, which he did on
19 May 1604. He had matriculated as a law student at Leyden in 1599, became
a lecturer in physics in the same year and a professor of logic in 1603. 32 In
1604 he took a law degree: as a licentiatus iuris 'creatus est Dfoctor] Iuris in
2S
Continued
Grote Reeks, xx, xxix, xxxviii, xlv, xlviii, liii and Ivi (The Hague, 1913-24) contains a list of graduates
for the period 1575-1610 (in the appendices of vol. 1) and a 'Catalogus promotorum' from 19 September
1654 to 1811 in the appendices of vols. 3 ff. The list of doctoral degrees 1610-54 has to be reconstructed
using other sources. For the Utrecht Album promotorum, see n.9; for Harderwijk, n. 14. See for Franeker,
Album promotorum Academiae Franekerensis (1585-1811), Th.J. Meijer, ed. (Franeker, n.d.[1972]);
for Groningen, 'Lijst van Promotien', Album studiosorum, cols. 445-622.
29
Colenbrander, op. cit., 291.
30
Feenstra, 'Legal relations' ,131:'. . . many (law students) would not have troubled to take a degree
of any kind'.
31
See Molhuysen, Bronnen, i, 460*. James Ramsay matriculated at Leyden as a law student on 6 April
1588 (Album studiosorum, col. 23). In 1588 he also became an extraordinary professor of logic. He died in
1593. Cf. A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek derNederlanden, bevattende levensbeschrijvingen
van zoodanigepersonen, die zich op eenigerlei wijze in ons vaderland hebben vermaard gemaakt, 21 vols.
(Haarlem 1852-78), xvi, 66.
32
See Album studiosorum, col. 270 (matriculation 24 November 1599of 'Joannes Mordisonus, Scotus,
[Aet.] 31, J[uris]'); Van der Aa, xii-II, 1167 and P.C. Molhuysen ela\.,Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch
Woordenboek [N.N.B.W.], 10 vols. (Leyden, 1911-37), ii, cols. 967-68.