Add MS 40173

FORMULA BOOK of a lawyer practising in the courts at Ghent probably Michael Clarebaut; compiled in 1624.

1. Formulas for use in civil actions. f. 2.

2. "Corte Instructie omme de Ionghe practisienen die in Vlaemsche taele in Vlaenderen practiquicren zullen willen in ciuile Zaecken": abridgement of the Flemish version of the civil part of the work "Brieue Instruction pour Josnes gens veullans hanter la pratique en causes ciuilles et criminelles en la Chambre du Comte de Flandres" by Philip Wielant, President of the Council of Flanders (d. 1519). The work was first composed in French in 1519. Only two copies of the French version are known, Lansdowne MS. 627 (probably the author's own copy) and a MS. at Ghent. The part dealing with civil procedure was printed in a Flemish translation at Antwerp in 1558 (not in the British Museum), and Joost de Damhoudere used the French version as the basis for his Pratique judiciaire es causes civiles, Antwerp, 1572. Accounts of Wielant and discussions of the relation between his work and that of Damhoudere are in articles by E. Nys, Revue de Droit international, Brussels, 1889, p. 155, and Ad. Dubois, Messager des sciences historiques, Ghent, 1889, pp. 301, 380. f. 30.

3. "Index decem temporum": contents list, so headed, of a book of legal practice, apparently of 85 folios. f. 116.

4. "Hier volghen diueersche requesten van diueersche materien": forms in Flemish and French. The French documents are chiefly concerned with Arras, and an account of the entry of the Count d'Hoogstraeten as Governor of Artois into Arras in 1624 (f. 137) dates the compilation of the volume in that year. f. 122 b. Paper ; ff. iv + 186. Folio. 1624. On f. 1 is the inscription "Michael Clarebaut Gandensis me possidet anno 1624," and the MS. appears to be partly in his hand. A later inscription is "Fostier Advocaat 1757." Contemporary vellum binding with thongs. In the binding were found four more or less complete strips of vellum and paper (ff. i-iv), containing documents in Flemish, 1555-1789, including receipts to Picier Cortewille, treasurer of Ghent, from Ieronimus van den Berghe (8 June 1555, f. i) and Raesse de Cleercq (15 July 1568, f. ii).