I was watching MI-5 on Netflix this afternoon, a more disturbing than usual episode where a scientist lets his daughter die to protect the location of a deadly virus. They repeat the phrase "pactum serva" (keep the vow/faith) in their final phone call with one another.
I swing into action trying to trace the earliest use and context of this phrase. The best I could find involved the tomb of Edward I, the king who hassled Braveheart. The phrase was part of an epitaph added to his tomb as a sort of postscript in the 16th century: Edwardus Primus Scotorum Malleus hic est, 1308. Pactum Serva (Edward I, Michael Prestwich, 1988, 566). "Edward the First, Hammer of the Scots, lies here, 1308. Keep the vow/faith."
I have an overly literal mind sometimes, but I have to ask, what is the tomb asking people to keep faith with?
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