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 BULLS

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BULLS

noticed incidentally that persons of all ranks, in writ- ing to the pope invariably addressed him as Vos. Sometimes a salutation was introduced by the pope at the end of his letter just before the date — for example, "Deus te incolumem custodial", or "Bene vale frater carissime". This final salutation was a matter of importance, and it is held by high authorities (Bress- lau, "Papyrus und Pergament", 21; Ewald in "Neues Archiv", III, 548^ that it was added in the pope's own hand, and that it was the equivalent of his signature. The fact that in classical times the Romans authenticated their letters not by signing their names, but by a word of farewell, lends proba- bility to this view. In the earliest original bulls preserved to us Bene Valete is written at full length in capitals. Moreover, we have at least some con- temporary evidence of the practice before the time of Pope Adrian. The text of a letter of Pope Gregory the Great is preserved in a marble inscription at the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. As the letter directs that the document itself is to be returned to the papal archives (Scrinium), we may assume that the copy on stone accurately represents the original. It is addressed to Felix the subdeacon anil concludes with the formula " Bene Vale. Dat. VIII Kalend. Februarias imp. dn. n. Phoca PP. anno secundo, et consulatus eius anno primo, indict. 7." This suggests that such letters were then fully dated and indeed we find traces of dating even in extant copies as early as the time of Pope Siricius (384-398). We have also some bulla or leaden seals preserved apart from the documents to which they were once attached. One of these perhaps dates back to the pontificate of John III (560-573) and another certainly belongs to Deusdedit (615-618). The earliest specimens simply bear the pope's name on one side and the word papce on the other.

II. Second Period (772-1048).— In the time of Pope Adrian the support of Pepin and Charlemagne had converted the patrimony of the Holy See into a sort of principality. This no doubt paved the way for changes in the forms observed in the chancery. The pope now takes the first place in the super- scription of letters unless they are addressed to sovereigns. We also find the leaden seal used more uniformly. But especially we must attribute to the time of Adrian the introduction of the "double date" endorsed at the foot of the bull. The first date began with the word Script mn and after a chronological entry, which mentioned only the month and the indiction, added the name of the functionary who drafted or engrossed the document. The other, beginning with Data (in later ages Datum), indicated, with a new and more detailed specification of year and day, the name of the dignitary who issued the bull after it had received its final stamp of authen- ticity by the addition of the seal. The pope still wrote the words Bene Valete in capitals with a cross before and after, and in certain bulls of Pope Syl- vester II we find some few words added in shorthand or "Tyronian notes". In other cases the Bene Valete is followed by certain dots and a big comma, by a S S (subscri psi), or by a flourish, all of which no doubt served as a personal authentication. To this period belong the earliest extant bulls preserved to us in their original shape. They are all written upon very large sheets of papyrus in a peculiar handwriting of Lombard type, called sometimes littera romana. The annexed copy of a facsimile in Mabillon's " He re diplomatics reproducing part Of B bull of Pope Nicholas I (S63), with the editor's

interlinear decipherment, will serve to give an idea of the style of writing. As these characters were even then not easily read outside of Italy it seems to have been customary in some cases to issue at the same time a ropy upon parchment in ordinary minuscule. A French writer of the tenth century

speaking of a privilege obtained from Pope Benedict VII (975-984) says that the petitioner "going to Rome obtained a decree duly expedited and ratified by apostolic authority, two copies of which, one in our own character (nostra littera) on parchment, the other in the Roman character on papyrus, he de-

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Bull from Mabillon's " Diplomatique "

posited on his return in our archives". (Migne, P. L., CXXXVII, 817.) Papyrus seems to have been used almost uniformly as the material for these official documents until the early years of the eleventh century, after which it was rapidly superseded by a rough kind of parchment. Apart from a small fragment of a bull of Adrian I (22 January, 7S8) preserved in the National Library at Paris, the earliest original bull that remains to us is one of Pope Paschal I (11 July, 819). It is still to be found in the capitular archives of Ravenna, to which church it was originally addressed. The total number of papyrus bulls at present known to be in existence is twenty-three, the latest being one issued bv Bene- dict VIII (1012-24) for the monastery of Hildes- heim. All these documents at one time had leaden seals appended to them, though in most cases these have disappeared. The seal was attached with laces of hemp and it still bore only the name of the pontiff on one side and the word papa on the Other. After the year 855 the letters of the pope's name were usually stamped round the seal in a circle with a cross in the middle.

The details specified in the "double dates" of these early bulls afford a certain amount of indirect information about the personnel of the papal chan- cery. The phrase script um per manum is vague and leaves uncertain whether the person mentioned was the official who drafted or merely engrossed the bull, but we hear in this connexion of persons described as 7>otarius, scriniarius (archivist), proto-