T HE purpose of this calendar ¹ is explained in the text. The chief
difficulty to meet is that of dating events in England when we
have only the date of a happening in Italy, that is a decision
in the Curia at Rome or Anagni or Ferentino, from which must be
inferred the precedent and consequent events in England. We start
with the generally accepted fact that a journey between England and
Rome took about thirty days: it might be much more leisurely and
it might be expedited to some small extent. ² The further journey to
Anagni, which lies some thirty-five miles to the south-east of Rome,
would have required at least another day's travelling. Ferentino
is yet another six miles distant from Anagni, and could hardly have
been reached by nightfall, even by a speedy messenger who set out
from Rome in the early morning. We can scarcely allow less than two
extra days for the longer journey. Other considerations are: the
point in England from which the messenger started; the possibility
of a delayed Channel crossing; and, if the business at the Curia in-
volved negotiations or litigation, the delay occasioned thereby. We
must in any case assume that mere office routine, the process of
settling, preparing and sealing a papal instrument, would itself
normally occupy some days. So far as the return journey is con-
cerned, there are fewer conjectures to be made. But a messenger
returning from Rome could not, in most cases, be certain where to
find the recipient, or rather the impetrant, of the letters he carried.
We distinguish between recipient and impetrant because papal
letters were as a rule addressed to another person than to him who
sought them. If, for example, a plaintiff desired an action to be tried
before judges delegate, the mandate would be addressed to the
three persons he had selected to act in that capacity, but the execu-
tion of the mandate depended upon himself: he had to secure that
the judges delegate received it. Similarly, if the king wished the
archbishop of Canterbury to do something in his ecclesiastical capa-
city, he might obtain a letter from the pope addressed to the arch-
bishop, but the letter would be handed at the Curia to the king's

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