Copies of the manuscript
There are several extant 15th- and 16th-century copies of the document, plus a colour-illuminated iteration of 1542. All the known, extant copies are derived, either directly or indirectly, from Codex Spirensis, a codex known to have existed in the library of the Chapter of Speyer Cathedral in 1542, but which was lost before 1672 and has not been rediscovered. The Codex Spirensis was a collection of documents, of which the Notitia was the final and largest, occupying 164 pages, that brought together several previous documents of which one was of the 9th century. The heraldry in illuminated manuscript copies of the Notitia is thought to copy or imitate only that illustrated in the lost Codex Spirensis.
The iteration of 1542 made for Otto Henry, Elector Palatine, was revised with "illustrations more faithful to the originals added at a later date", and is preserved by the Bavarian State Library. [1]
The most important copy of the Codex is that made for Pietro Donato in 1436 and illuminated by Peronet Lamy, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
The Jovians and Herculians were the senior palatine imperial guard units under the rule of Roman Emperor Diocletian. They continued in existence thereafter as senior units in the field armies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires.
Comes, often translated as count, was a Roman title or office.
The naval forces of the ancient Roman state were instrumental in the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean Basin, but it never enjoyed the prestige of the Roman legions. Throughout their history, the Romans remained a primarily land-based people and relied partially on their more nautically inclined subjects, such as the Greeks and the Egyptians, to build their ships. Because of that, the navy was never completely embraced by the Roman state, and deemed somewhat "un-Roman".
The limitanei, meaning respectively "the soldiers in frontier districts" or "the soldiers on the riverbank", were an important part of the late Roman and early Byzantine army after the reorganizations of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. The limitanei, unlike the Comitatenses, palatīni, and Scholae, garrisoned fortifications along the borders of the Roman Empire and were not normally expected to fight far from their fortifications.
A vexillatio was a detachment of a Roman legion formed as a temporary task force created by the Roman army of the Principate. It was named from the standard carried by legionary detachments, the vexillum, which bore the emblem and name of the parent legion.
The praetorian prefecture of Illyricum was one of four praetorian prefectures into which the Late Roman Empire was divided.
The praetorian prefecture was the largest administrative division of the late Roman Empire, above the mid-level dioceses and the low-level provinces. Praetorian prefectures originated in the reign of Constantine I, reaching their more or less final form in the last third of the 4th century and surviving until the 7th century, when the reforms of Heraclius diminished the prefecture's power, and the Muslim conquests forced the Eastern Roman Empire to adopt the new theme system. Elements of the prefecture's administrative apparatus, however, are documented to have survived in the Byzantine Empire until the first half of the 9th century.
Laeti, the plural form of laetus, was a term used in the late Roman Empire to denote communities of barbari ("barbarians"), i.e. foreigners, or people from outside the Empire, permitted to settle on, and granted land in, imperial territory on condition that they provide recruits for the Roman military. The term laetus is of uncertain origin. It means "lucky" or "happy" in Latin, but may derive from a non-Latin word. It may derive from a Germanic word meaning "serf" or "half-free colonist". Other authorities suggest the term was of Celtic or Iranian origin.
The Scholae Palatinae were an elite military imperial guard unit, usually ascribed to the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great as a replacement for the equites singulares Augusti, the cavalry arm of the Praetorian Guard. The Scholae survived in Roman and later Byzantine service until they disappeared from the historical record in the late 11th century, during the reign of Alexios I Komnenos.
The magister officiorum was one of the most senior administrative officials in the Later Roman Empire and the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire. In Byzantium, the office was eventually transformed into a senior honorary rank, simply called magistros (μάγιστρος), until it disappeared in the 12th century.
The Taifals or Tayfals were a people group of Germanic or Sarmatian origin, first documented north of the lower Danube in the mid third century AD. They experienced an unsettled and fragmented history, for the most part in association with various Gothic peoples, and alternately fighting against or for the Romans. In the late fourth century some Taifali were settled within the Roman Empire, notably in western Gaul in the modern province of Poitou. They subsequently supplied mounted units to the Roman army and continued to be a significant source of cavalry for early Merovingian armies. By the sixth century their region of western Gaul had acquired a distinct identity as Thifalia.
In modern scholarship, the "late" period of the Roman army begins with the accession of the Emperor Diocletian in AD 284, and ends in 480 with the death of Julius Nepos, being roughly coterminous with the Dominate. During the period 395–476, the army of the Roman Empire's western half progressively disintegrated, while its counterpart in the East, known as the East Roman army remained largely intact in size and structure until the reign of Justinian I.
The Eastern Roman army refers to the army of the eastern section of the Roman Empire, from the empire's definitive split in 395 AD to the army's reorganization by themes after the permanent loss of Syria, Palestine and Egypt to the Arabs in the 7th century during the Byzantine-Arab Wars. The East Roman army was the continuation of the Late Roman army of the 4th century, until it gradually transformed into what is now called the Byzantine army from the 7th century onwards.
The palatini were elite units of the Late Roman army mostly attached to the comitatus praesentales, or imperial escort armies. In the elaborate hierarchy of troop-grades, the palatini ranked below the scholares, but above the comitatenses and the limitanei.
Cohors quarta Gallorum equitata was a Roman auxiliary cohort containing both infantry and cavalry contingents.
Cohors secunda Delmatarum was a Roman auxiliary infantry regiment.
Peronet Lamy, called Perenet lenlumineur, was a Gothic painter and manuscript illuminator who spent his career in the employ of the House of Savoy.
The Primani was a legio palatina of the Late Roman army, active in the 4th and 5th century.
The Cornuti ("horned") was an auxilia palatina unit of the Late Roman army, active in the 4th and 5th century. It was probably related to the Cornuti seniores and the Cornuti iuniores.
By the size of the Roman army is meant the changes in the number of its contingents: legions, auxiliaries, Praetorian cohorts, Urban cohorts, vigiles, and naval forces over the course of twelve centuries – from 753 BC to AD 476.
