They blamed this humiliation either on the inexperience of King Juan's entourage or on pride. Although the latter explanation could be dismissed offhand as mere moralization, it can be understood more correctly as a casual analysis founded on the national vice of the Spanish, which also was the characteristic vice of the nobility. This diagnosis is confirmed both by the touchiness and by the indiscipline of those same inexperienced familiars of the Castilian king. At least a modest celebration is in order, it seems to this observer, over the recent spate of publications of medieval archival materials coming out of Spain.
Scholars can now rejoice in the availability of some authoritative complement to their own notes.
Librarians can sigh with relief that some current volumes may be easily obtained to stand duty for earlier published collections now long out of print. These current publications are also particularly valuable because they treat what are the larger repositories of medieval documents outside of the Archivo Historico Nacional and the Biblioteca Nacional. The first volume is an accompanying diplomatic study which is useful although hardly definitive for any given reign. Series I, Regesta et Inventaria Historica. In it the contents of 702 documents are summarized and their final protocol and subscriptions printed along with the source references.