1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Album

ALBUM (Lat. albus, white), in ancient Rome, a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees, edicts and other public notices were inscribed in black. The Annales Maximi of the Pontifex Maximus, the annual edicts of the praetor, the lists of Roman and municipal senators (decuriones) and jurors (album indicum) were exhibited in this manner. In medieval and modern times album denotes a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected. It is also applied to the official list of matriculated students in a university, and to the roll in which a bishop inscribes the names of his clergy. In law, the word is the equivalent of mailles blanches, for rent paid in silver (“white”) money.