1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 251 Lat. 15006). The Paris manuscript is almost complete ; there are fragments of the same work in another Paris manuscript (4720 A, ft. l r -5 r )> and in a Florentine manuscript (Cod. Riccard. 918, ff. l r -ll r ). The last named con- sists mainly (ft*. 13 r -85 v ) of a Summa Notariae, written at Arezzo 1240-3 by an unknown author, who was influenced by and copied from Rainerius. 1 A native of Perugia (comitatus), Rainerius practised as notary and teacher at Bologna. He is mentioned in the Register of Notaries of 1219, and various official and business documents reveal him as ' de Porta Nova ', married, and a landowner. The Summa Artis Notariae of Zacharias, notary of Bologna, written in 1271, tells of the ' Summa cum glossis super artem notarie ' written by * meus doctor, magister Rainerius Perusinus, preclarus et famosus doctor atque iudex '. Dr. Wahrmund assigns his life conjecturally to 1185-1245. That he was an important and influential man is proved by his works and by his official description, ' imperiali auctoritate notarius et iudex '. Though not a doctor, Santi considers him to have been the earliest public teacher of the notarial art at Bologna. But he was overshadowed by Rollandinus Passagerius (of the Summa Orlandina), who seems to have been his pupil, and not being mentioned by Durandus and Iohannes Andreae, has fallen into oblivion. One definite result of the present work is to distinguish the Ars Notariae, of which this is the first edition, from an earlier and slighter work by the same author. The rubrics of the manuscripts and Rainerius' s own expres- sions do not distinguish them, and future confusion will be avoided by adopting for the earlier work the name suggested by Dr. Wahrmund, Liber Formularius. 2 The two works appear to have been written at Bologna about 1214 and 1224-33 respectively. The chief point of the introduction is to establish Rainerius as the precursor of Rollandinus, who, as Santi says, ennobled the ars. notariae. The ennoblement consisted in the creation of a body of doctors in notaria, outside, though in connexion with, the faculty of jurists. This means that from being technically an ars, notaria became a scientia. If Rollandinus ennobled the notarial art, Rainerius founded it. He stands at the beginning of a development which brought procedure within the notary's province, promoted the class of notaries from mere scribes into a branch of the legal profession, and the notarial art from a branch of rhetoric into a science. This new conception of the ars notariae as a science is expressed by Rainerius in vigorous terms, which are echoed as late as the fifteenth century. The results of this higher conception are seen in the Liber Formularius, but still more in the Ars Notariae. We have not a mere jumble of haphazard precedents, but an exposition of the various branches of notarial activity based on adequate theoretical know- ledge. All three sections of the work (de contractibus et pactis, de iudiciis, et de ultimis voluntatibus) preface a rich collection of precedents by a treatment of the law from the notary's point of view, followed by a short decisive summary recapitulating the chief legal considerations which he must bear in mind when drafting. This treatment reflects the practice of the Bolognese professors of notaria, who habitually lectured on the 1 This has been edited by Cicognaro in Gaudenzi, Bibliotheca Iuridica Medii Aevi, vol. iii. 2 Ibid. vol. ii.
