Royal Letters Research Articles

‘Our Dearest Lord and Father Received Him From the Baptismal Font’: The Life and Career of Philippe le Convers

ABSTRACT This article examines the life and career of Philippe le Convers, a converted Jew who was a powerful royal administrator and the godson of King Philip the Fair of France (r. 1285–1314). Unlike other high-profile French converts, Philippe does not appear to have contributed to conversionary efforts or to anti-Jewish legislation. The article draws on evidence from financial records and royal letters to evaluate Philippe's work as a tax collector, master of the Parlement of Paris and forest enquêteur. It also examines the administrative appointments he secured for his relatives and the large estate he amassed at Léry, which he eventually transferred to Queen Jeanne of Burgundy in exchange for payment that significantly exceeded the property's value. This discussion highlights the ways that the sons and successors of Philip the Fair used their continued patronage of Philippe to emphasise their ties to their late father.

Effects of Organized Hypocrisy Strategy on the Establishment of Political Relation of Rama I and Emperor Qianlong

The paper deploys and develops the organized hypocrisy theory to account for the effect of organized hypocrisy strategy on the establishment of the political relation between Rama I and Emperor Qianlong from 1782 to 1787. Using the case study of Rama, I and Emperor Qianlong and a historical analysis, the paper shows that the logic of consequences of Rama I seek China’s economic and military leads to Sino-Thai conflicting logics of appropriateness. Thailand uses the organized hypocrisy strategy to respond to this situation with two mutually negative versions of royal letters and transliterated terms. The key decoupling mechanism of the strategy is that the Thailand monarch conducts diplomatic interactions that maintain his status, while the Chinese in Thailand act as intermediaries to handle interactions that damage Thailand Monarch’s prestige. Organized hypocrisy strategy allows Thailand to maintain Rama I’s claim of universal kingship and meet the demand of Emperor Qianlong investing Rama I at the same time. Rama I and Emperor Qianlong formed a nominal tributary relationship on this premise. Thailand's organized hypocrisy strategy is largely the political hypocrisy of a small country dealing with a big one. Emperor Qianlong practicing the doctrine of ‘no rule’ and not sending envoys for investiture makes the hypocrisy strategy play a positive role. This study informs our theoretical understanding of Sino-Thai friendly official relations by introducing a focus on the organized hypocrisy strategy hitherto lacking.

A Reinterpretation of Chosŏn-Qing Foreign Relations through an Analysis of Chosŏn and Later Jin Bilateral Relations

Abstract Existing research tends to treat the transition from Chosŏn-Ming relations to Chosŏn-Qing relations as an uninterrupted process and the two relations as equivalent to each other. This article will show, from Chosŏn's perspective, how relations between Chosŏn and Later Jin evolved between 1605 and 1636 and later influenced Chosŏn-Qing relations. While Chosŏn initially treated Later Jin as barbarians and not as an official state, after the establishment of Later Jin, equal interstate relations were established through the exchange of royal letters (kuksŏ 國書) and envoys (sinsa 信使) during the years 1627–29. Negotiations continued until the Second Manchu Invasion in 1636, during which time interactions with the Ming continued as usual but discussions with Later Jin through royal letters established bilateral relations. After 1636 and the establishment of the Qing dynasty, diplomatic documents followed the same format as Chosŏn-Ming relations, but Chosŏn still considered the Qing as barbarians and continued to express their loyalty to the Ming through covert actions affirming the Ming as the Heavenly Dynasty. Thus, Chosŏn-Ming relations and Chosŏn-Qing relations were qualitatively different and cannot be considered the same.

ROYAL LETTERS ON THE DON AS A SOURCE ON THE HISTORY OF RELATIONS OF THE DON KAZAKOV AND THE SMALL NOGAIS AT THE END OF THE 16TH – THE FIRST HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURIES

The relevance of the presented article lies in the fact that based on the analysis of the royal letters sent to the Don Cossacks in the XVI – XVII centuries, it is possible to determine the main directions of the foreign policy of the Moscow state on the southern border, which it tried to implement through the Don Cossacks, as well as to determine the role of the Cossacks themselves in relations with the little Nogai – one of the main opponents of Moscow, along with Turks and Crimean Tatars in the North-Eastern Azov region. The main source in our study was the letters of the Russian tsars, published back in 1864. the editor of the "Don military vedomosti" I.P. Pryanishnikov. As a result of the application of historical-comparative and historical-typological methods, we concluded that for the Moscow state, issues related to building relationships with the Kaziev ulus (The Little Nogai Horde) through the use of Don Cossacks, if not paramount, then, in any case, played a far from the last role in foreign policy in the southern direction in the XVI– XVII centuries. The measurement method was used by us when calculating quantitative information about the main actors of international relations contained in the certificates sent from Moscow to the Don, which we compared to determine the main and secondary partners of Russia in the southern direction. In the context of studying the relationship of the Don Cossacks with the Little Nogai Horde, these letters are studied for the first time.

О правоприменительных аспектах юридической политики первых Романовых в сфере воеводского управления (первая половина XVII в.)

The legal policy of the first Romanovs, aimed at institutionalizing the autocratic monarchy, was carried out taking into account the principle of the rule of law. Acting after 1613 against the background of the intensification of the legislative activity of the Zemstvo Councils, the sovereigns of the new, elective dynasty, nevertheless, made a choice in favor of the sole principle of government. In the rulemaking of the first half of the 18th century. there is a consistent consolidation of the public legal basis of the Russian autocracy, organizational and legal means of ensuring the supremacy of the will of the ruling persons through nominal decrees are being tested. With the formation of the voivodeship administration apparatus, the development of which was an important condition for the restoration of state unity, acts of law enforcement addressed to the local administration in the form of royal letters and orders began to acquire legislative significance. Purpose. The article examines the trend of legal policy in the first half of the 18th century to the transformation of tsarist legislation into the only source of law, which can be traced by the example of the gradual transformation of royal letters to voivodes into nominal decrees. Methodology. This study was carried out on the basis of combining a political-legal and socio-cultural approach, taking into account the principle of historicism. Results. It is noted that the removal of tsarist legislation from the influence of the “zemstvo principle” became the leading direction of the legal policy of the first Romanovs. Conclusion. It is stated that the fundamental role of the rule of law policy, the implementation of which can be traced by the example of law enforcement acts, is to consolidate the institutions of the Russian autocracy and, in particular, the voivodeship management system.

The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions by Pamela Bartash

Reviewed by: The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions by Pamela Bartash Ben Dewar (bio) The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions Pamela Bartash Oxford University Press, 2020. x + 320 pp. $99 hardcover. The monograph under discussion is an "histoire totale" (3) of the Laws of Hammurabi and the stele bearing it, investigating the ideological messages present in the text and image, the scribal culture that influenced the text's composition, and the reception of the Laws in later periods. Bartash's core argument is that Mesopotamian law collections were written by taking a series of stock legal situations and improvising a series of statutes based on them that expressed the scribe's own notions of what was fair and just. The Laws merged this tradition with that of royal inscriptions to create an innovative new expression of royal power. In chapter one, Bartash argues that the image on the stele alters the standard investiture scene in several ways to present Hammurabi as closer in status to the god Shamash. Furthermore, pairing this image with an unusually long text in an archaiz generalization ing, top-to-bottom script creates an original and eye-catching monument. Chapter two focuses on three textual traditions relating to justice that were pre-existent when the Laws was written: acts of equity described in royal hymns and inscriptions, social reform edicts, and law collections. Bartash analyses the content and rhetoric of these three types of text, arguing that they all demonstrate the role of justice in royal legitimation, but do so in different ways. Chapters three and four explore how the Laws' author combined the traditions discussed in chapter two into a new expression of royal justice. Chapter three analyses the Laws as a royal inscription, analysing how the author engaged with the discourse practices of Mesopotamian commemorative inscriptions. Chapter four compares the Laws with other law collections to argue that it is more complexly structured than its earlier counterparts. Bartash argues that, like the authors of earlier law codes, the Laws' scribe [End Page 209] improvised a series of example statutes based on his knowledge of legal texts and terminology internalised during scribal education. However, the Laws' scribe innovatively structured their improvised statutes, demonstrating a more complex conceptualisation and systematisation of law and implying a number of legal principles. The Laws therefore marks an important step, Bartash argues, towards the generalization and abstraction of law. Bartash demonstrates the conceptualization and systematization present in the Laws in chapter five, which uses the adoption statutes from the Laws as a case study for the concepts discussed in chapter four. Chapter four ends with an excursus on scribes and their education. The placement of this section is slightly confusing. The excursus outlines scribes' internalisation of the discourse practices and streams of tradition engaged in chapter four. One would therefore expect it to be placed earlier in the book. This is, however, a minor criticism, and the reader does not feel lost for not having read the excursus before chapter four. Chapter six tackles the important question of the legal authority of the Laws. Previous scholarship has often debated whether the Laws represents the law as it was practiced in Mesopotamia by identifying legal cases in royal letters or archival records that mirror circumstances described in the Laws. Bartash argues that this methodology applies modern conceptions of legal precedent to a culture whose legal system did not operate on precedent, and emphasizes the consistency of law while ignoring the need for discretion in the adjudication of individual legal cases. Bartash instead focuses on the flexibility of Mesopotamian law; the Laws is not a written record of the code actually enforced, but one scribe's expression of their own ideas—formed through intensive engagement with pre-existing legal literature—on what is fair and just. This novel approach to the Laws resolves many of the problems surrounding the nature of the Laws, and greatly improves our understanding of Mesopotamian law. Chapter seven explores the reception of the Laws in later periods. First, Bartash considers instances of scribal improvization in later law collections. She argues that the exportation of the...

Fejezetek a középkori Ibér-félsziget állam- és jogtörténetéből

The formation of the monarchy of the estates, as a complex process, also could not be separated from the development of the geopolitical and social conditions in the southwestern corner of our continent, on the Iberian Peninsula. There, in the state development, the Kingdom of Aragon reached the furthest, as evidenced by its written sources. In our article, we do not intend to deal with the possibilities of comparison, nor with the question of which contemporary European letter of privilege may have influenced one (or possibly several) others. Instead, keeping in mind the peripheral familiarity of the Iberian Middle Ages in Hungary, we will try to bring the Aragonese example of medieval royal letters of privilege closer to the readers, primarily based on local bibliography. We do this by presenting the path and background leading to it, in the broader context of state development on the Iberian Peninsula.

Foreign Policy Orientation of the Bithynian King Ziaelas in Light of New Inscriptions from Kos

The appearance of this article was prompted by the discovery of a new block of inscriptions from the island of Kos, published in the 50th volume of the journal Chiron by D. Bosnakis and K. Hallof. Among these inscriptions, dating to 243 BC, of particular interest are two royal letters concerning the recognition of the right of asylum possessed by the temple of Asclepius in Kos. The first letter belongs to the king of Bithynia Ziaelas, and the second – to the Seleucid queen Laodice I, the mother of Seleucus II and Antiochus Hierax. Analysis of the contents of these documents compels us to rethink the commonly held assumptions about the foreign policy orientation of King Ziaelas from the second half of the 240s BC. Based on the already known earlier letter of Ziaelas to the citizens of Kos (IGXII, 4, 1, 209), together with the evidence of the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea (Euseb. Chron. Schoene, I, 251), many researchers believe in the existence of a long-term alliance between this Bithynian king and Ptolemy III Everget, formed at the beginning of the second half of the 240s BC and lasting at least until the mid-230s BC. Instead, given the observations made on the basis of the new royal letters by D. Bosnakis, K. Hallof, and the author of this article, we can speak of only a very shortlived political partnership between Ziaelas and Ptolemy III. Afterwards, Ziaelas quickly returned to the Seleucid political orbit. This conclusion follows from the absence of references to Ptolemy III in the new letter of the Bithynian king, combined with indications of contacts between the latter and Laodice I, openly hostile to Everget. This move by Ziaelas was probably dictated by the lack of tangible military or political support from the Alexandrian ruler. The fact of the rupture of the short-lived relationship between Ziaelas and Ptolemy III, together with the testimony of the already known sources, suggests that the king of Bithynia continued permanently in the Seleucid sphere of influence.

Types of Hellenistic Military Settlements in Royal Letters

The article is devoted to the analysis of information on Hellenistic military settlements, which can be found in the extant letters of Seleucid and Attalid kings. We mean the letter of Antiochus III preserved by Flavius Josephus in his Judean Antiquities, and three letters extant as inscriptions on stone: ‘Ikadion’s inscription’ from the island of Failaka in the Arabian Gulf (Kuwait, middle of the 3rd – early 2nd centuries BC), Antiochus V’s letter from Jamnia-on-the-Sea (Palestine, 163 BC) and Eumenes II’s letter from Kardakon Kome (Lycia, 181 BC). The material of the letters allows to conclude, that there were at least two different types of aforementioned settlements: 1) military settlements in proper sense, inhabited by warriors, whose duty was permanent military service, and members of their families; 2) specific settlements where people generally lived peaceful lives being engaged mostly in agriculture, cults of local sanctuaries etc., but also in some military activities like defense of fortresses. Both types could be protected by the kings in the form of partial or full tax exemption, land grants etc., although the second type got less royal attention of that kind than the first one. The existence of the second type can be explained by the fact that the oldest type of army, quite actual in the ancient world, was militia of a community. Thence the second type of settlements can be nothing else than communities, whose militias were used by the Hellenistic kings in their military activities alongside the professional army.

L’histoire ne se termine pas avec une inscription. Les tyrans d’Érésos et leur famille

The inscription known as the «Stele of the Tyrants of Eresos», recalls the tyrannical episodes experienced by the city in the 4th century. It insists on the failed attempts of the descendants of the tyrants to return to their ancestors’ homeland since the city of Eresos refused their reinstatement despite the request from royal letters. However, a prosopographic comparison allows us to hypothesize that, with Lysimachus being victorious and the island of Lesbos entering his domination, their descendants were able to return to the city of their fathers. Inscriptions are the truth of one moment and the provisional version of the winners.

Kathleen B. Neal, The Letters of Edward I: Political Communication in the Thirteenth Century, Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2021, pp. xvii, 240.

Abstract: The government of Edward I of England (1272‐1307) issued tens of thousands of letters in his name, thousands of which have been preserved in a variety of formats, including as stand-alone documents, as enrolled texts, and as reported in contemporary narrative works. Despite the vast number of royal letters, however, they have received surprisingly little scholarly attention as a literary genre, although many of Edward’s letters have been mined for information about a wide range of topics. Moreover, until very recently, the vast corpus of royal letters has not been used in a systematic way to gain insights regarding the thinking and character of Edward, himself. The present study by Kathleen B. Neal, lecturer in history at Monash University, goes a long way toward rectifying this substantial lacuna in the critical analysis of a key genre of source materials for Edward’s reign. Neal also succeeds in shedding light on King Edward’s approach to and conception of the practice of royal rule.

Islamic Custom of Letter and Seal in Sarakata Manuscript “Surat-Surat dari Aceh”

This paper presents research on sarakata manuscript from the collection of the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia. The Sarakata analyzed in this research is entitled “Surat-Surat dari Aceh” with the code ML 447. This sarakata was written in the 19th century using Jawi script. This sarakata consists of nine letters, but in this study only four sarakatas are analysed, namely sarakata 3, 5, 6, and 7. We chose those sarakatas because it contains historical, economic, political, social, and Islamic law aspects. The method used when transliterating is a critical edition. The structure of the text is examined using ‘guidance of correspondence’ in Kitab Tarasul. When compared with that, the SSA sarakata has only five elements, but it has an element that is not contained in Kitab Tarasul, namely the pledge. The different correspondence formats occured because Aceh has its own Islamic-proprietary-custom. The seal in sarakata (sikureueng seal) is examined using sigillography. Based on a that study, sikureueng seal is ‘the seal used by the Aceh sultans in the establishment of important royal letters containing the name of the ruling sultan’. This seal can consist of nine circles or one circle. The different design and decoration of the seal depict the arts and specific objectives of each king. This usage is examined using the semiosis process by Pierce. The results show that the sikureueng seal is adorned with natural and geometric forms that have their own meanings, such as hope of growth, peace, welfare, life, and longevity.

A library for eternity: Books donated on death bed by Mem Peres de Oliveira, a Portuguese cleric and scholar (fifteenth century)

In Portugal, a ‘studium generale’ was founded in the late thirteenth century by royal initiative, ecclesiastical plea, and apostolic sanction. This foundation belonged to the onset of the development of European universities, shortly after the initial wave led by the universities of Paris and Bologna. Concerning this small, albeit long-lasting, university located in a peripheral region of Europe, no official records have survived previously to the fifteenth century, when the academic documents known as Livro Verde (literally the Green Book), named after the colour of the front cover of the codex, were compiled. In order to rectify this lack of documentation regarding the Portuguese Medieval university, starting in the 1960s, a massive effort of archive surveying and documental editing and anthologising was undertaken, following what had been done in France in the late nineteenth century, or in Italy in the first half of the twentieth century. The initiative, led by the highly respected Portuguese historian Artur Moreira de Sá, produced a collection of 16 large volumes - the Chartularium Universitatis Portugalensis, which consists of a compilation of nearly seven thousand documents pertaining to the Portuguese Medieval University, published between 1966 and 2004. It gathers documents from the moment of its founding (c. 1290), until its definitive relocation to Coimbra (1537), encompassing a large diversity of sources, such as papal bulls, royal letters, contracts, statutes of the university, parliament records, and many others. This paper intends to give the proper attention to a specific document, compiled in the CUP, as a particular source to inquire on the cultural milieu of the early fifteenth century Portuguese university. Among the gathered materials, we find a last will transcription of a Portuguese man of the cloth, Mem Peres de Oliveira, the dean of the diocese of Évora (in southern Portugal) and Bachelor of Canon law, dated May 7, 1407. Besides the several sums of money endowed by the deceased to support the studies of the more destitute students at the Portuguese university, this specific bequest, interestingly, also concerns the donation of a significant amount of manuscripts to be used by them when studying the disciplines of canon law, civil law, and theology. Although published in CUP, this document has never been comprehensively treated from a cultural point of view, namely the library itself. Considering the school use of the donated books, the census of its authors and contents acquires a great deal of importance as it allows identifying the most relevant textbooks for the Portuguese university and, at the same time, to reconstitute the private library of a Portuguese ecclesiastical from the early fifteenth century.

Sovereign Spaces: Mise‐en‐page and the Politics of English Royal Correspondence in the Sixteenth Century*

AbstractThe layout of inter‐princely correspondence is an important, but overlooked, aspect of how early modern princes communicated and contested their relative status. While recent scholarship on material letters has illuminated social relations within European polities, the ways in which the mise‐en‐page of royal letters can be used to explore the relationships between rulers has been neglected. Focusing primarily on letters written to or by English monarchs of the sixteenth century, this article analyses the space on the page in order to demonstrate the way in which epistolary etiquette expressed hierarchies and could be used to claim status.

“On Tour” from Aachen to Rome

Sigismund of Luxemburg, King of Hungary spent much time journeying abroad. His “itinerant” court visited diverse places from Istria to Wallachia. The members of his entourage, mainly a new generation of homo novus lords, escorted him from the Aachen (1414) to the Rome (1433) coronations and were active in foreign service. This article reconstructs the itinerant entourage mostly during the Council of Constance (1414–18). It also aims to explore which “core” members of the retinue accompanied the king most of the time and show that there emerged an inner circle commissioned with special tasks. As an evidentiary control sample, the article uses Sigismund’s second period of journeys (1430–1434). There will be two further pieces of corresponding evidence examined, a list enumerated by Eberhard Windecke (1422) and a 1430 Nuremberg register. In order to give a descriptive list, the range of the available sources undergo a methodological analysis (direct and indirect evidence: royal letters and commissions; safe conducts; charters issued in personis and in praesentibus; armales and ius gladii donations; prorogatio and papal supplicatio documents; chancery writs signing someone’s relatio; narrative and iconographic sources). A possible reconstruction of Sigismund’s retinue is given in an appendix, on the grounds of which one may conclude that the king had a special company by his side. The presence of “a Constance group” was constant in the 1420s–30s. There are some “permanently” serving families. A nucleus was being formulated, remaining together from Aachen to Rome.

Fakery, forgery, and [Mis]representation during the English Civil War: dubious royal letters and contested diplomatic authority in the Russia trade, 1642-49

ABSTRACT The 1640s posed an existential threat to English trade interests in Russia. Tsar Aleksei’s accession to the throne in 1645 finally gave voice to native merchant opposition to the generously privileged Muscovy Company as the new government embarked on an aggressive protectionist course. By 1646, the Company in London and Moscow was pushing back against the stripping of its ancient right to duty-free trade. Resistance, however, was futile without the traditional support of the English monarch, which the London-based Muscovy Company failed to secure at this time. Instead, the Russia merchants found themselves under direct attack by the king himself as traitors. So would claim the royal envoy Luke Nightingale in a secret oral message to Aleksei, accompanied by letters from Charles of dubious provenance. These largely unexplored communications are fascinating for how they draw Russia into the dramatic orbit of the English Civil War. At the same time, they raise the possibility of documentary tampering and forgery in furtherance of personal and/or royalist objectives, while prompting consideration of how the collapse of royal authority in these years challenged merchants, trade, and diplomats.

Gender and the language of politics in thirteenth‐century queens’ letters

This article examines how the ars dictaminis, the conventions which governed medieval letter writing, was used within a selection of thirteenth-century royal letters written in the names of Berenguela of Castile, Blanche of Castile, Violant of Hungary, Marguerite of Provence, Eleanor of Provence, Blanche of Navarre and some of the men with whom they most frequently corresponded. In setting out contemporary usage of the ars dictaminis within this selection, this article proffers an examination of formal and public expression of power (both female and male) in thirteenth-century letters – an expression which was articulated surprisingly similarly – and highlights the complexities of female political dialogue.

Pergamon Decree for Athenaios the Clergyman

The decree of Pergamon, dated between the 8th October 135 BC and the spring of the 133 BC, contains three royal letters: the first letter (A) is addressed by the king Attalos II to Athenaios (I), his cousin; the second (B) is addressed by the king Attalos III to the city of Kyzikos; the third (C) is addressed by the king Attalos III to the city of Pergamon. The three letters deal with religious affairs: the letter (A) refers to the election of Athenaios (II), nephew of Athenaios (I), to the position of priest of Dionysos Kathegemon after the death of his father, Sosandros, which held this role, and is addressed to the grandfather of Athenaios (II), i.e. Athenaios (I). The second (B) relates to the privileges which the city of Kyzikos has to grant to Athenaios (II), citizen of Kyzikos, priest of Dionysos Kathegemon and of Zeus Sabazios, according to the will of Attalus III. The third letter (C), which the city has to enter into the sacred laws, ἱεροὶ νόμοι, states the reform of the cult of Zeus Sabazios, achieved by Attalus III: Zeus Sabazios becomes σύνναος θεός of Athena Nikephoros and the Athenaios (II) is confirmed as hereditary priest of Zeus Sabazios in the reformed cult.

Pergamon Decree for Athenaios the Clergyman

The decree of Pergamon, dated between the 8th October 135 BC and the spring of the 133 BC, contains three royal letters: the first letter (A) is addressed by the king Attalos II to Athenaios (I), his cousin; the second (B) is addressed by the king Attalos III to the city of Kyzikos; the third (C) is addressed by the king Attalos III to the city of Pergamon. The three letters deal with religious affairs: the letter (A) refers to the election of Athenaios (II), nephew of Athenaios (I), to the position of priest of Dionysos Kathegemon after the death of his father, Sosandros, which held this role, and is addressed to the grandfather of Athenaios (II), i.e. Athenaios (I). The second (B) relates to the privileges which the city of Kyzikos has to grant to Athenaios (II), citizen of Kyzikos, priest of Dionysos Kathegemon and of Zeus Sabazios, according to the will of Attalus III. The third letter (C), which the city has to enter into the sacred laws, ἱεροὶ νόμοι, states the reform of the cult of Zeus Sabazios, achieved by Attalus III: Zeus Sabazios becomes σύνναος θεός of Athena Nikephoros and the Athenaios (II) is confirmed as hereditary priest of Zeus Sabazios in the reformed cult.

신라 중대의 國制 개혁과 律令 改修

The system of meeting courtesies (避馬制), official seal, and posthumous titles were changed to more closely resemble Chinese practices in the middle of the 7th century. These systems were originally established and legislated during the reign of King Bepheung. Related to the system of government, these changes meant the reformation of Silla’s national constitution.BR A political faction led by Kim, Choonchu 金春秋 conducted these reforms after his return from Tang 唐. Zhenguan 貞觀 or Yonghui 永徽 Law Codes was embraced by them, which served as a model for the new chapter of Law Codes called Gyeok 格. However, Royal Letters (王敎) on the organization and duties of central administrative offices were the basis for this conduct.BR The traditional method of revising the Law Codes of Silla was to supplement the new acts at the end of the each chapter. In addition, some Royal Letters could be converted into acts after the survey of a office concerned, Libang-bu 理方府. The middle of the 7SUPth/SUP century was a critical period in terms of the development of both the content and form of Silla’s Law Codes.