[482] Where Valla’s text of the Donation reads “concubitorum,” Zeumer’s reads “excubiorum” [guards].
[483] Martial, XIV, 141 (140).
[484] Valla for this part of his criticism uses the rather unintelligible order of words found in most texts of the Donation, instead of the more intelligible order which he used in his earlier quotations. Cf. pp. 102, 103.
[485] Valla’s text of the Donation in this paragraph differs greatly from Zeumer’s, Hinschius’, and Friedberg’s. It is not very clear in any of the texts whether the intent is to give the Pope power to take any one whomsoever into the clergy and thus relieve him from civil and military duties, or to prevent the Roman nobility from forcing their way into ecclesiastical offices against the will of the Pope.
[486] Ps. xxi, 3, with variation.
[487] Valla does not, here, quote his own text of the Donation correctly.
[488] This singular confusion about the crown in the Donation is explained by Brunner, Festgabe für Rudolf von Gneist, pp. 25 et seq., as giving the Pope the possession, but not the use, of the imperial crown, thus paving the way for his prerogative of conferring the crown upon Louis the Pious in 816. Scheffer-Boichorst takes the whole episode as an attempt of the forger to glorify Sylvester by having the emperor honor him with the imperial crown, and having the Pope display the clerical humility (and pride) of rejecting it.
[489] Valla’s text of the Donation here has “sive” for “seu,” cf. supra, [p. 91, note 1]. In the whole paragraph there are many deviations from other texts of the Donation.
[490] Cf. supra, pp. [41] et seq., [49] et seq.
[491] This phrase as used in the Donation probably meant Lombardy, Venetia and Istria; i.e., practically, northern, as distinct from peninsular, Italy. Cf. supra, [p. 27, note 2], also, Döllinger, Papstfabeln (ed. Friedrich), p. 122, note. In classical Latin it would have been, as Valla insists, a vague term.