The purpose of this essay is to make a beginning with an exploration of the content and layout of a register mainly containing decisions of the Scottish lords of council which for simplicity I shall refer to as “the Register”. This Register apparently existed in the sixteenth century but is no longer extant; at any rate, if it has been misplaced rather than lost or destroyed, it has not yet emerged from its hiding place. The main and, as will appear, perhaps the only direct source of our knowledge of it is the work known as Balfour's Practicks which was compiled in the sixteenth century by Sir James Balfour of Pittendreich and first printed in 1754.

In these Practicks decisions are usually referred to not only by their date and by the names of the parties but also by a chapter number in one of two volumes which for the most part contained decisions (along with some Acts of Parliament or council). An example of such a reference is “15 Octob. 1478, Williame Lord Creichtoun contra Herbert Johnstoun, 1 t. c. 21” which is recorded in the Practicks in the second half of c VI of the title “Of milnis and multures” (494).