The Court of the Official in Pre-Reformation Scotland by Simon Ollivant. Pp. x + 230. (Stair Society, vol. xxxiv, 1982).

Abstract

Although, as can be seen from the Italian comments on Eyre's letter, it was actually Don Michael Rua who made the decision about Glasgow it was left to Don Bernard Redehan to both expand the reply and copy the final draft. Only the signature is in Bosco's frail hand. A problem arises in the dating of the two letters; Bosco's reply is dated a month before Eyre's original request. Since both Redehan and Eugenio Ceria record the reply from Don Bosco as 16 December 1887, the answer may be simply this. The Italian abbreviation for December, 10 may have been incorrectly transcribed as the tenth month, that is October. These two documents are of interest both as a small but coherent archival source and as part of the larger picture of two great figures in the nineteenth-century church. James M. Lawlor Chesters College. note 1. My thanks to Revv. Motto and Fenyo of the Institute Storico Salesiano, Rome, and to Canon h. n. Boyle of Glasgow for their assistance.