It is evident, even from this brief outline, that the Sicilian state was not only a skilful blending of political elements of diverse origin, but also that it stood well in advance of its contemporaries in all that goes to make a modern type of government. Its kings legislated at a time when lawmaking was rare; they had a large income in money when other sovereigns lived from feudal dues and the produce of their domains; they had a well established bureaucracy when elsewhere both central and local government had been completely feudalized; they had a splendid capital when other courts were still ambulatory. Its only rival in these respects, the Anglo-Norman kingdom of the north, was inferior in financial resources and had made far less advance in the development of the class of trained officials through whom the progress of European administration was to be realized. Judged by these tests, it is not too much to call the kingdom of Roger and his successors the first modern state, just as Roger’s non-feudal policy, far-sightedness, and diplomatic skill have sometimes won for him the title of the first modern king. This designation, I am well aware, has more commonly been reserved for the younger of Sicily’s “two baptized sultans,”[68] Frederick II--_stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis_, “the wonder of the world and a marvellous innovator.” No one can follow the career of this most gifted and fascinating figure without feeling the modern elements in his character and in his administration of the Sicilian state. His government stands ahead of its contemporaries in the thirteenth century as does that of Roger in the twelfth, and the more recent naturally seems the more modern. It is not, however, clear that the relative superiority was greater, and recent studies have made plain, what was not at first realized, that considerable portions of Frederick’s legislation and of his administrative system go back to his Norman predecessors, some of them to Roger himself. After all it is not the historian’s business to award prizes for being modern, especially when it is not always plain in what modernity consists. The main point is to recognize the striking individuality of the Sicilian state in directions which other states were in time to follow, and to remember that this individuality was a continuous thing and not a creation of the second Frederick. Moreover, as we shall shortly see, what is true in the field of government is also true in the field of civilization: the brilliant cosmopolitan culture of the thirteenth century is a direct development from similar conditions under King Roger.