When Mendoza was viceroy of New Spain, he caused a specimen of Aztec writing and book-making to be prepared and sent to Charles V., with an explanation in Spanish. Copies of this exist to-day; one in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and another, which Prescott thought was the original, though Bancroft believed it to be a copy, in the Escurial Library. This Codex Mendoza was in three parts: 1st, historical; 2d, tribute rolls; 3d, descriptive of the domestic life and manners of the people. Besides this and the Borgia, there are the Codex Vaticanus, in the Vatican Library, another in the same place written on skin; the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, in the Bibliothèque National, Paris; the Codex Bologna, in the library of the Scientific Institute, and a number of others in divers places.[63] The remnants of the native Tezcucan archives were inherited by Ixtlilxochitl, lineal descendant of the last “king” of Tezcuco, who used them in preparing his historical writings. The collection afterwards disappeared. Many of the manuscripts were merely chronological, but there were also tribute rolls, law codes, court records, historical records, and all the varied writings that belong to an active and intelligent people. The priests executed and held in their possession the important books, and seem to have been the leaders of whatever learning existed. “These writings,” says Bancroft, “were a sealed book to the masses, and even to the educated classes who looked with superstitious reverence on the priestly writers and their magic scrolls.” The paper used was usually made from the leaves of the maguey. It is probable that the Aztecs learned to make it from the Mayas or from some intervening tribe who had learned from the Mayas. Sometimes the books were long strips of cotton cloth, or even a kind of parchment. They were either rolled up or folded like a screen, and frequently had covers of wood. A great deal of ingenuity and skill were bestowed on the preparation of these books and the writing they contained.