The Memoirs divided themselves into two parts, the first from the reign of Louis XI., 1464-1483, the second on the Italian expedition and the negotiations at Venice leading to the Vercelli treaty, 1494-1495. The first part was written between 1489 and 1491, while Commines was at the château of Dreux, the second from 1495 to 1498. Seven MSS. are known, derived from a single holograph, and as this was undoubtedly badly written, the copies were inaccurate; the best is that which belonged to Anne de Polignac, niece of Commines, and it is the only one containing books vii. and viii.
The best edition of Commines is the one edited by B. de Mandrot and published at Paris in 1901-1903. For this edition the author used a manuscript hitherto unknown and more complete than the others, and in his introduction he gives an account of the life of Commines.
Bibliography.—The Memoirs remained in MS. till 1524, when part of them were printed by Galliot du Pré, the remainder first seeing light in 1525. Subsequent editions were put forth by Denys Sauvage in 1552, by Denys Godefroy in 1649, and by Lenglet Dufresnoy in 1747. Those of Mademoiselle Dupont (1841-1848) and of M. de Chantelauze (1881) have many merits, but the best was given by Bernard de Mandrot: Memoirs de Philippe de Commynes, from the MS. of Anne de Polignac (1901). Various translations of Commines into English have appeared, from that of T. Danett in 1596 to that, based on the Dupont edition, which was printed in Bohn’s series in 1855.
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COMMISSARIAT, the department of an army charged with the provision of supplies, both food and forage, for the troops. The supply of military stores such as ammunition is not included in the duties of a commissariat. In almost every army the duties of transport and supply are performed by the same corps of departmental troops.
COMMISSARY (from Med. Lat. commissarius, one to whom a charge or trust is committed), generally, a representative; e.g., the emperor’s representative who presided in his absence over the imperial diet; and especially, an ecclesiastical official who exercises in special circumstances the jurisdiction of a bishop (q.v.); in the Church of England this jurisdiction is exercised in a Consistory Court (q.v.), except in Canterbury, where the court of the diocesan as opposed to the metropolitan jurisdiction of the archbishop is called a commissary court, and the judge is the commissary general of the city and diocese of Canterbury. When a see is vacant the jurisdiction is exercised by a “special commissary” of the metropolitan. Commissary is also a general military term for an official charged with the duties of supply, transport and finance of an army. In the 17th and 18th centuries the commissaire des guerres, or Kriegskommissär was an important official in continental armies, by whose agency the troops, in their relation to the civil inhabitants, were placed upon semi-political control. In French military law, commissaires du gouvernement represent the ministry of war on military tribunals, and more or less correspond to the British judge-advocate (see [Court-Martial]).
COMMISSION (from Lat. commissio, committere), the action of committing or entrusting any charge or duty to a person, and the charge or trust thus committed, and so particularly an authority, or the document embodying such authority, given to some person to act in a particular capacity. The term is thus applied to the written authority to command troops, which the sovereign or president, as the ultimate commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces, grants to persons selected as officers, or to the similar authority issued to certain qualified persons to act as justices of the peace. For the various commissions of assize see [Assize]. The word is also used of the order issued to a naval officer to take the command of a ship of war, and when manned, armed and fully equipped for active service she is said to be “put in commission.”