Notitia Dignitatum

Notitia Dignitatum, official list of all ancient Roman civil and military posts, surviving as a 1551 copy of the now-missing original. It is a major source of information on the administrative organization of the late Roman Empire—late 4th and early 5th centuries—and is divided into two sections, covering the eastern and western parts of the empire as divided in ad 395.

The document goes into detail about the chief civil and military officials of the empire, together with their departmental staffs and, occasionally, the areas of their expertise or competence. The manuscript includes drawings of the insignia or regimental shield of each magistrate and the fort of each military commander.

Four copies survive, one each in Oxford, Eng., Cambridge, Eng., Paris, and Munich. They were copied during the Renaissance from a copy made in the age of Charlemagne (late 8th or early 9th century) from an original manuscript of the early 5th century ad.