ABSTRACT
The documents published by Stern were sijillat manashir or simply manashir, ‘open letters’, or in mediaeval and early modern English usage, ‘letters patent’: that is, official declarations issued to the recipients as proof of decisions in their favour, accompanied where necessary with injunctions to the local authorities to see that those decisions were duly enforced. The devotio that follows is the habitual formula that establishes the divine authority enjoyed by the originator, whose name is given in the intitulatio. In the sijill the devotio precedes the name, but at least in the Christian tradition would normally follow: Henry, by the grace of God, King of England. The message opens with the arenga or proemio, an introductory address or harangue that reiterates the elements of the invocatio, devotio and salutatio with, in this case, an intimation of the content of the message, an account of the downfall of an enemy.
