Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/602

 694 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October chancery and resulted in the preservation at Parcelona, in the rich archives of the crown of Aragon, of a large store of records relating to Sicily from which the editor has collected some of his most interesting material. As our knowledge of the detailed working of the Aragonese-Sicilian monarchy leaves something to be desired, we may anticipate much that is new and valuable from Dr. La Mantia's researches. The great flood of new light thrown on the history of the period traversed in this volume is perhaps an augury of still better things to come. The editor has taken a broad view of his functions. A preface of over 200 pages, though containing perhaps an undue proportion of narrative political history, also includes a full account of the provenance of the documents printed or calendared, the manner in which this collection has been made, and some important contributions to the administrative history of the Sicilian monarchy. Besides the preface the editor has prefixed to each section of his collection elaborate ' Notizie preliminari ', and careful notes, both historical and diplomatic, to each of the documents transcribed. Documents of uncertain date and forged documents are ^ealt widi in separate series for each reign, and additional documents are added in extensive appendices. There are also careful and fairly copious indices of personal and local names. Altogether no pains have been spared to give the student information and to save him trouble. Dr. La Mantia prints most of his documents in full, a few are sum- marized, and in some cases reference is simply given to the place where they have been previously printed. His texts seem good, and if in one or two places the cases go wrong, it may as likely be the fault of the original transcriber as of the editor. If the annotations are in fault it is because of certain omissions, notably of points, of diplomatic interest. Thus the ordinary royal mandate as given is clearly and definitely dated in the text of the document itself, both as to the place, and time of the month after the Roman fashion of Kalends, Ides, and Nones, and the year, this latter being nearly always the year of our Lord, but sometimes the regnal year of the king. But in the great majority of cases there is no reference to any sealing. The question arises in a land where the notarial system was very strongly established whether these documents were sealed or not. The notes seldom make any reference to sealing, and as most of the docu- ments seem copied from registers or cartularies there would be no question apart from mentions in the text of whether there were an appended seal or not in the original. Yet there are cases where the body of the docu- ment speaks of sealing, especially in the later years of the period. There is no instance that I have noticed of the seal of Peter I, save in the case of two forgeries, as regards one of which the editor quotes the seal as an evidence of falsification (pp. 239 and 240). James, however, commonly sealed documents with his pendant seal, and some of these (e.g. pp. 454, 465, 467, 473, 475) were not notarial instruments. We have also the seals of Queen Constance, of several iudices, and of the Infante Alfonso, and also the bulla dependens of Don Frederick, attached to a ' public instrument '. But in a large number of cases the seal seems only an additional pre- caution appended to a notarial instrument whose normal attestation is not the seal but the signum of the notary and the crosses or signa-