BENE VALETE. — A formula of greeting derived from Roman epistolary usage (Cicero uses Vale, Valete in his letters), which acquired a special diplomatic significance in papal documents, representing the Pope’s subscriptio. In the documents of the Merovingian kings (7th century), a similar formula (bene valiat) was used, but it served as an order for dispatching the document, not as a greeting or sign of validation.
It appears for the first time in the oldest surviving original papal document, a privilege of Paschal I for the church of Ravenna (A.D. 819), and remained a characteristic of the most solemn documents, or privileges. It was written on the right, beneath the text, in the space between the latter and the date. In the 9th century and for much of the 10th, it was written in mostly uncial capital letters, on two lines, preceded and followed by a cross, and executed with calligraphic care; it must therefore be ruled out that it was written by the Pope himself. Later it changed form: it was written on a single line, in a more or less wavering hand that cannot have been the work of a calligrapher, and is therefore considered the Pope’s autograph. Under Leo IX (1049), the cross that preceded it was transformed into the rota (v.), and the b. V. monogram, executed in full by a calligrapher of the chancery. It is sometimes followed by a group of signs that diplomatics scholars designate by the name comma. The last known privilege in which the b. V. appears is that of Urban V.
Rome 1929; some examples in G. Battelli, Acta Pontificum (Exempla Scripturarum, III), Vatican City 1933. Giulio Battelli