There were, indeed, the papal decretals from Clement I to Gregory VII, collected by Cardinal Antonio Carafa and published by Antonio d'Aquino in 1591, but they were incomplete and their chronological order was frequently incorrect. There were also the "Annales Ecclesiastici" of Baronius and the "Concilia antiqua Galliae" of the Jacques Sirmond and other works containing scattered letters of the popes; but no one had attempted to make a complete collection of papal letters, much less to sift the spurious from the authentic, to restore the original texts and to order the letters chronologically.