of friendly powers from penetrating into their secrets.
Charles V. thought it safest to keep them as far away as possible from
his court. So did Francis I.; and, when affairs were critical, he made
his frequent changes of residence and his hunting expeditions the excuse
for escaping from their presence. Henry VII. forbade his subjects to
hold any intercourse with them, and, later on, set spies upon them and
examined their correspondence--a practice by no means confined to
England. If the system of permanent embassies survived, it is clear that
this was mainly due to the belief of the sovereigns that they gained
more by maintaining "honourable spies" at foreign courts than they lost
by the presence of those of foreign courts at their own. It was purely a
question of the balance of advantage. Neither among statesmen nor among
theorists was there any premonition of the great part to be played by
the permanent diplomatic body in the development and maintenance of the
concert of Europe. To Paschalius the permanent embassies were "a
miserable outgrowth of a miserable age."[15] Grotius himself condemned
them as not only harmful, but useless, the proof of the latter being
that they were unknown to antiquity.[16]

_Development of the Diplomatic Hierarchy._--The history of the
diplomatic body[17] is, like that of other bodies, that of the
progressive differentiation of functions. The middle ages knew no
classification of diplomatic agents; the person sent on mission is
described indifferently as _legatus_, _orator_, _nuntius_, _ablegatus_,
_commissarius_, _procurator_, _mandatarius_, _agens_ or _ambaxator_
(_ambassator_, &c.). In Gundissalvus, _De legato_ (1485), the oldest
printed work on the subject, the word _ambasiator_, first found in a
Venetian decree of 1268, is applied to any diplomat. Florence was the
first to make distinction; the _orator_ was appointed by the council of
the republic; the _mandatorio_, with inferior powers, by the Council of
Ten. In 1500 Machiavelli, who held only the latter rank, wrote from
France urging the Signoria to send _ambasiadori_. This was, however,
rather a question of powers than of dignity. But the causes which
ultimately led to the elaborate differentiation of diplomatic ranks were
rather questions of dignity than of functions.[18] The breakdown of
feudalism, with the consequent rise of a series of sovereign states or
of states claiming to be sovereign, of very various size and importance,