Institutions possessing a special character are the monti frumentarii, public grain deposits, founded for the purpose of supplying peasant proprietors with seed corn, debts being paid in kind with interest after harvest.
The special character of Norman rule in Sicily was that all these various races flourished, each in its own fashion, each keeping its own creed, tongue and manners, under the protection of a common sovereign, who belonged to none of them, but who did impartial justice to all.
Its animals and plants have a special character suited to the peculiar climatal conditions, more closely allied to those of the adjacent northern Siberian tract than of the other bordering regions.
And though Bede makes no pretensions to originality, least of all in his theological works, freely taking what he needed, and (what is very rare in medieval writers) acknowledging what he took, "out of the works of the venerable Fathers," still everything he wrote is informed and impressed with his own special character and temper.
This gives the work its special character.
