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Notitia Dignitatum

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Notitia Dignitatum

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document detailing the administrative organisation of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires

~7 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Page from a medieval copy of the Notitia Dignitatum commissioned in 1436 by Pietro Donato, depicting shields of Magister Militum Praesentalis II, a late Roman register of military commands. Bodleian Library, Oxford. Palestine and the River Jordan, from the Notitia Dignitatum illuminated by Peronet Lamy

The Notitia dignitatum et administrationum omnium tam civilium quam militarium (Latin for 'List of all dignities and administrations both civil and military') is a document of the Late Roman Empire that details the administrative organization of the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. It is unique as one of very few surviving documents of Roman government, and describes several thousand offices from the imperial court to provincial governments, diplomatic missions, and army units. It is usually considered to be accurate for the Western Roman Empire in the 420s and for the Eastern or Byzantine Empire in the 390s. However, the text itself is not dated (nor is its author named), and omissions complicate attempts to ascertain its date from its content.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Notitia Dignitatum” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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