plained of the delays in his business, and that, when he desired to have the articles of this treaty put into Latin according to the custom of treaties, it was fourteen days they made him stay for that translation, and sent it to one Mr Milton, a blind man, to put them into Latin, who, he said must use an amanuensis to read it to him, and that amanuensis might publish the matter of the articles as he pleased, and that it seemed strange to him there should be none but a blind man capable of putting a few articles into Latin." In turning over the pages of the great collection of treaties by Dumont and Rousset, one may observe how gradually, during the ascendency of Richelieu, and the subsequent reign of Louis XIV., the use of the French language radiates from the immediate diplomatic transactions of France over those of Europe at large. Probably its propagation was originally connected with the visions of that universal French empire to which Louis XIV. seemed to be marching before he encountered the combinations of William of Orange. At the present day it can only be pronounced a fortunate thing that diplomatists have agreed to use one language, and that the best adapted for
their peculiar functions.DIPLOMATICS, the science derived from the study of ancient diplomas, so called from being written on two leaves, or on double tablets. The Romans used the term more specially for the letters of licence to use the public conveyances provided at the different stations, and gene rally for public grants. Subsequently it attained a more extended signification, and in more modern times has been used as a general term for ancient imperial and ecclesiastical acts and grants, public treaties, deeds of conveyance, letters, wills, and similar instruments, drawn up in forms and marked with peculiarities varying with their dates and countries. With the revival of literature, the importance of such documents in verifying facts and establishing public and private rights lad to their being brought together from the historical works and the monastic registers in which they had been copied, or, in rarer instances, from public and ecclesiastical archives where the originals were still preserved. Then arose questions of authenticity, and doubts of the so-called originals; disputants defended or condemned them ; and, in order to establish principles for distinguishing the genuine from the forged, treatises were written on the whole subject of these diplomas. With a view to establish the credit of those preserved in the original, the Benedictine, Dom Mabillon, in the year 1681 produced his masterly work De re diplomatica, Papebroch, the Jesuit, having already, in the year 1675, written his Propylæum antiquarium circa veri ac falsi discrimen in vetustis membranis in the Acta Sanctorum, April, vol. ii. In the following century appeared the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, by Dom Toustain (who, however, died before the completion of the work) and Dom Tassin, Benedictines of the congregation of St Maur, 6 vols. 4to, 1750-1765, treating of the whole subject of diplomas, and accordingly entering at length into a minute investigation of the peculiarities and characteristics of writing proper to different ages and countries. Thus treatises on the subject of diplomas gave the name of diplomatics to the study of ancient writing, now more properly termed Palæography, under which it will be separately treated.
Imperial decrees and privileges, public acts and treaties, and, no doubt, contracts between private persons, were in remote times inscribed on marble and stone, on wood and on metal. The wonderfully preserved monuments of ancient Nineveh show the prevalent use of sun-burnt brick. Tn Egypt papyrus was used from the remotest times. The Greeks and Romans recorded public documents on wooden tablets, on stone, bronze, lead, and ivory, as well as on papyrus, parchment, and other substances. Tablets of wax served for letters and writings of various kinds, but must have been unsuitable for public acts. Pliny speaks of the use of rolls of lead and of linen. There are many Greek documents preserved in the British Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, and elsewhere, such as royal letters, petitions, contracts, and wills, of the time of the Ptolemies, written on papyrus. See Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, tome xviii., with plates. The Byzantine emperors often used golden and coloured inks from the 8th to the 12th century.
We know that archives were provided by the Romans for the preservation of their public acts; but fire and war have been the great destroyers of these documents so precious to the historian. Suetonius relates that Vespasian under took to restore from copies 3000 brazen tablets, containing most ancient records, dating almost from the beginning of the republic, which had been consumed when the Capitol was burnt. Original documents of the nature of diplomas, written in Latin, are now not forthcoming of an earlier period than the 5th century. The acts emanating from royal authority anterior to the 13th century are almost exclusively derived from ecclesiastical archives, and consist of foundations of monasteries, and grants of property, privileges, and immunities. In England, from the 13th century they are systematically registered in the royal chancery; the series of rolls in which they are written, under different classes, is very complete from the reign of King John. History is greatly indebted to the care with which religious houses registered their title deeds. From an early time it was their practise to copy them into volumes, arranging them generally under the name of the property. Chartularies of this character of the 10th century are still extant. The chartulary of Winchester Abbey, compiled early in the 12th century, and containing numerous documents of the time before the Conquest, is in the British Museum.
Imperial acts affecting the state at large were proclaimed through the governors of provinces; as in later times, in England royal writs and ordinances were addressed to the sheriffs of the several counties. In England, it would seem, when the object was to appeal to the people, the document was publicly exhibited. When Edward III. landed, as Prince of Wales, on the Yorkshire coast, with the design of overthrowing his father's government, he drew up a manifesto of his purposes, addressed to the citizens of London, who exhibited it on the cross in the Cheap, placing copies in their windows (Chron. Monasterii de Melsa.)
forms. The Romans employed official clerks, (scribæ), assigning them to the different magistrates. Under the empire they are called tabelliones, and act as public notaries. After the breaking up of the Roman empire, there was a period when the chanceries of the new states were imperfectly served. The notarial science was partially lost, and, in the general neglect of learning, the composing a public act or private document was a task of difficulty. In the 7th century the monk Marculfus composed a formulary for guidance in drawing up documents of various kinds. It was first published by Bignon in 1613. In Migne's edition, Patrologiæ Cursus, vol. xxxvii., it is accompanied with several anonymous compilations of the same character. In the 12th and 13th centuries we meet with works of the same kind under the title of de arte dictaminum. A. very interesting collection of precedents of royal warrants, state letters, papal bulls, and other documents, arranged under many heads of subjects, was compiled by the English poet Occleve, while he was a clerk in the council office at the beginning of the 15th century, and is now in the British
Museum. We are best able to understand the nature of