Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Blaðsíða 62
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first two leaves of the subject-index; all three of these preliminary
leaves have been repaired. Again, f. Ir of the manuscript section of
the volume is soiled, and a large tear at the top left-hand corner has
been repaired, while ff. 32-35 of this section are worn at the edges and
f. 35 is soiled on the verso. All of this reveals that the printed book and
the manuscript both circulated for a considerable time in an unbound
State. Since the signature of “Robert Norie minister att Dundie” -
already seen on the first two preliminary leaves of the Fasciculus -
recurs on the lower half of the back page of the manuscript (f. 35v), I
think it likely that the two items were still unbound when they reached
Norie, but that he obtained them simultaneously and indicated their
mutual relationship by means of the notation “1-2” on the title-page of
the Fasciculus.
Robert Norie (d. 1727) was a graduate of St Andrews who held
livings at Dunfermline from 1678 to 1686 and at South Church, Dun-
dee, from 1686 to 1716. He was deprived of South Church for dis-
loyalty but apparently continued there and was later consecrated as a
Nonjurant bishop.11 The date by which he had acquired the two items
now at Brechin Castle can be fixed as not later than c. 1700, for in 1702
they are referred to in print by William Nicolson, archdeacon and later
bishop of Carlisle, who writes the following concerning the Orkney
islands:
There’s a pretty ancient History of these [i.e. the Orkneys], together with a
short one of the whole Kingdom, which was compil’d by Order of the King of
Denmark; and its Truth is attested by the Bishop and Prebendaries of that
Church. A Manuscript Copy of it (which belong’d formerly to Bishop Reid) is
now in the Possession of Mr. Robert Norrie, Minister at Leckoway near For-
far; and contains about a Quire of Paper.12
This might appear on superficial inspection only to be a reference to
the manuscript item, the first two articles of which are described by
11 Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae... new edition, V (Edinburgh, 1925), pp. 29, 320.
12 W. Nicolson, The Scottish Historical Library: containing a Short View and Charac-
ter Of most of the Writers, Records, Registers, Law-Books, &c. Which may be Service-
able to the Undertakers of a General History of Scotland... (London, 1702), p. 50. This
paragraph is paraphrased - and compounded with gross errors - in George Mackenzie,
The Lives and Characters Of the most Eminent Writers of the Scots Nation... III (Edin-
burgh, 1722), p. 50; cf. Laing in BM III, 30.