MacFarlane notes that as the main collection of briefs of the Secretariat (brevia secreta), these have filed with them many of the documents that relate to the briefs themselves. Thus original supplications or copies of supplications, drafts of briefs and original briefs are also included with the main body of entries. Although some briefs are quasi-political in content, the majority are devoted to purely ecclesiastical matters and are comparable to the Dataria Apostolica series Brevia Lateranensia. It also appears that the Secretariat of Briefs (also abbreviated as Sec. Brev.) provided services to certain offices (e.g., briefs issued by the Propaganda Fide went through Sec. Brev.), so it may be possible to augment one's knowledge of mission territories through this office (i.e., United States, Central and South America, Asia, Africa). The cedole concistoriali are related to the conferring of concistorial benefices. According to Pasztor (1973, p. 210) there are two types of cedole and there is also a controcedole concistoriale. The relationship between the two types of cedole and the controcedole of the vicecancelleria is an unsolved question. It appears from Pasztor (p. 14) that the controcedole, which served as the basis for bulls conferring consistorial benefices, are less informative than the cedole, which communicate the consistorial decision to confer the benefice. ASV Indice 753, "Index Brevium Greg. XIII," notes that there are many permissions for liturgical and quasi liturgical acts (e.g., nuns can pray the rosary instead of the office, a marchionessa can hear Mass at home and can have an indulgence for a chapel in her home). ASV Index 763, "Indulgentiarum," notes many permissions given to confraternities, religious orders, and oratories; after the name of the recipient some index entries specify "indulgentia"; others do not specify anything. For additional information on the scope of this series, see the note by Guidi at beginning of ASV Indice 1098. Note in particular the miscellaneous contents of Sec. Brev.: briefs, minutes, original supplications, and so forth. Many sixteenth-century letters from this series have been published by Father Josef Metzler in America pontificia primi saeculi evangelizationis 1493-1592: Documente pontificia ex registris et minutis praesertim in Archivio Secreto Vaticano existentibus (Vatican City, 1991). These include: annulments of licenses to return from American provinces obtained by false pretext; licenses to bishops to ordain priests with no benefice or income; requests to bishops to protect native converts from soldiers; indulgences to support Jesuit efforts; declaration that Dominicans do not need episcopal license to establish foundations in the Americas; confirmations of donations to religious; exhortations to spread the faith; dispensations from the impediment of consanguinity for native converts (Incas); authorization for an investigation into a bishop's alleged concubinage and simony; license for burying poor persons in the church of a confraternity; prohibition against secular legal intervention; absolution for a native Mexican who married after professing religious vows; license for a Dominican friar to leave Mexico in order to carry out the work of evangelization in the Philippines and China; licenses for trade with infidels; and approval of the transformation of a failing religious house into a hospice for the poor in Panama. The same general categories of business are also found in the Sec. Brev. for Europe, for example, licenses, dispensations, absolutions, indulgences, and confirmations relating to religious foundations, chapels, and churches.
