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"Your most humble and devoted servant, GALEAZ SFORTIA VICECOMES, Armorum Capitaneus. Vigevano, 30th of March, 1491." Isabella, however, still remained obdurate, declaring that on no account would she follow Beatrice's changeable conduct, and was ready to defend her hero against a hundred thousand opponents.
If the Saxon earl did not survive the Conquest in the same position as before, the Saxon sheriff did. The office as the Normans found it in England was in so many ways similar to that of the viscount, vicecomes, which still survived in Normandy as an administrative office, that it was very easy to identify the two and to bring the Norman name into common use as an equivalent of the Saxon.
With the change of officials came a sort of amalgamation or duplication of titles; the ealdorman or earl became the comes or count; the sheriff became the vicecomes; the office in each case receiving the name of that which corresponded most closely with it in Normandy itself.
These learned writers are in some perplexity as to the identity of the writer, since the letters are signed Galeaz Sfortia Vicecomes, and internal evidence will not allow them to have been written by any Galeazzo Sforza or Visconti then living. But there can hardly be a doubt as to who the writer actually was.
In the Shire courts themselves the English sheriff who used to preside over the court was replaced by a Norman "vicecomes," who practically did as he chose, or as he was used to do in Normandy, in questions of procedure, proof, and judgment.
Galeazzo di Sanseverino had been adopted by Lodovico Sforza when he married his daughter Bianca, and from that time used the surname of the ducal house, Sfortia Vicecomes, and very frequently added his title of Armorum Capitaneus, captain of the armies of Milan.
This prohibition is in these words: "Nullus vicecomes, constabularius, coronator, vel alii balivi nostri, teneant placita coronae nostrae." Some persons seem to have supposed that this was a prohibition merely upon officers bearing the specific names of "sheriffs, constables, coroners and bailiffs," to hold criminal trials. But such is not the meaning.
I wished for your presence many times during the whole ceremony, but since this desire of mine could not be satisfied, I thought I would give you this account with my own hand. Commending myself to your Highness as ever, "Your sister, BEATRIX SFORTIA VICECOMES ESTENSIS DUCHISA BRI. Vigevano, December 29, 1493.
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