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Clement Litill
(1527-1580)
Advocate, Commissary of Edinburgh,
and founder of Edinburgh University Library
The younger son of an Edinburgh merchant and burgess, Clement Litill
was educated at the University of St Andrew and at Louvain, eventually
returning to Edinburgh in 1550 to practise as a lawyer. He had first met
the opinions of the Reformers at St Andrews, and now embraced the reformed
kirk.
His bequest of 276 volumes, mainly theological, to the Toun and Kirk of
Edinburgh, founded the Library. The collection, in which traditional and
Lutheran treatises are both well represented, was handed over by the
Town Council, of which Clement's brother William was a member, to the
Tounis College in 1584, the year after the first students were admitted
to
the College. It is now preserved in the Library Strong Room. Each book
is stamped with a circular seal showing the arms and initials of Maister
Clement Litill and another stamp which states:
I AM GEVIN TO EDINBURGH & KIRK OF
GOD BE MAISTER CLEMENT LITIL
THAIR TO REMAN. 1580
The books are listed in the University Library's guard-book catalogue.
A printed catalogue of the collection is included in "Clement Litill
and his library: the origins of Edinburgh University Library", by
Charles P. Finlayson (Edinburgh, 1980) which is available or reference
in the Special Collections Department, where the collection itself may
be consulted.
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