ice.]

'To this your regular office we also add the place of _Primicerius_
[_Primicerius Notariorum_?], so that you are the channel through which
honours as well as largesses flow. Not only the Judges of the
Provinces are subject to you, even the _Proceres Chartarum_ (?) have
not their offices assured to them till you have confirmed the
instrument. You have also the care of the royal robes. The sea-coasts
and their products, and therefore merchants, are under your sway. The
commerce of salt, that precious mineral, rightly classed with silken
robes and pearls, is placed under your superintendence.

'Take therefore these two dignities, the Comitiva Sacrarum Largitionum
and the Primiceriatus. If some of the ancient privileges of your
office have been retrenched [some functions, probably, taken from the
Comes Sacrarum Largitionum and assigned to the Comes Patrimonii],
comfort yourself with the thought that you have two dignities instead
of one.'

8. FORMULA OF THE OFFICE OF COMES PRIVATARUM, AND ITS EXCELLENCY.

[Sidenote: Office of Count of Private Domains.]

'Your chief business, as the name of your office implies, is to govern
the royal estates by the instrumentality of the _Rationales_ under
you.

'This work alone, however, would have given you a jurisdiction only
over slaves [those employed on the royal domains]; and as a slave is
not a person in the eye of the law, it seemed unworthy of the dignity
of Latium to confine your jurisdiction to these men. Some urban
authority has therefore been given you in addition to that which you
exercise over these boors: cases of incest, and of pollution or
spoliation of graves, come before you. Thus the chastity of the
living and the security of the dead are equally your care. In the
Provinces you superintend the tribute-collectors (Canonicarios), you
admonish the cultivators of the soil (Possessores), and you claim for
the Royal Exchequer property to which no heirs are forthcoming[445].
Deposited monies also, the owners of which are lost by lapse of time,
are searched out by you and brought into our Exchequer, since those
who by our permission enjoy all their own property ought willingly and
without sense of loss to offer us that which belongs to other men.

[Footnote 445: 'Caduca bona non sinis esse vacantia.']

'Take then the honour of _Comes Privatarum_: it also is a courtly
dignity, and you will augment it by your worthy fulfilment of its
functions.'

9. FORMULA