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In this week’s poser we’re looking at précis. A précis is usually composed of names, dates or types of action such as “Johnston v Brown Aliment” in a court book or “William Gilchrist 25 April 1652” in a testament or “Annie MacKay non-attendance” in a church minute book. The purpose of a précis in a volume is to allow the reader to identify quickly the piece of text which is of interest to them. The elements which are used in a précis reflect the nature of the contents. The examples below are taken from the Torphichen regality court rental for the sheriffdom of Peebles (National Archives of Scotland reference RH11/68/6 pages 35 and 36), where the type and amount of rent for each tenant is recorded. If you were to use the volume for that purpose you would be looking for a name and/or place, which is exactly how the précis here work.

Précis taken from Torphichen regality court rental, NAS ref. RH11/68/6 pp35-36

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Letter c
Letter s
Letter x


Answer