1 Perhaps it might be as well to add explicitly that at the period we are dealing with the datary, which had begun as a simple office for dating out-letters concerning papal favours, had developed, through becoming an office authenticating the documents, into an office which in fact controlled the issue of these favours—provisions, etc.—with due regard to the increasing and undefined powers of the secretariate.

2 ‘Subreption’ in a petition is described as ‘reticentia veri’ or holding back of relevant facts, in can. 42 of the Code of Canon Law. With it is defined its twin brother, ‘obreption’, or ‘expositio falsi’. They are not always easily distinguished in practice, and are often cited together, especially by lawyers, who like their enumerations to be taxative.