One authority1 has even gone so far as to assert that a special law was passed...
1. An anonymous annotator of the Ambrosian MS. of Andrea Dandolo's Chronicle -- a version which, it is only fair to point out, was described by an 18th century director of the Ambrosian Library in Milan as a confuta indigestaque farrago.
This made me chuckle. A footnote to comment about an authority found in footnotes.