Seals

 We use signatures symbolically to indicate our agreement to something or to authorize it.  Go into the bank to set up an account or apply for a loan, and you'll have to sign in a great many places.  A presidential executive order is not official until signed.  A piece of paper with maybe a flower on it that says "this piece of paper is worth $346.18" (ie a check) takes its validity from your signature.  When you agree that you have read and accepted the terms and conditions of a website (yeah, like you've actually read them all), you "sign electronically" by checking a box.

Medieval people occasionally signed, but more often they used seals.  The Romans had used seals, generally lead.  Hot lead would be dribbled onto something, then imprinted with a signet (note the similarity to the word signature).  This might have a small image of something but would have the official name as well.

The Byzantine emperors, heir to the Romans, continued using lead seals.  But they, and the popes, who also were heirs to Rome, soon switched from hot lead to cold lead.  Because lead is quite a soft metal, one could use a powerful press to mark the lead with the signet.  Instead of an uneven blob of (originally molten) lead, one would have a nice round seal, previously made in an even shape, then imprinted.  Of course the imprinting would sometimes be a little off center, but it was still a lot better than a blob.

During the early Middle Ages, wax rather than lead became the standard for most seals.  Lead seals had been used by emperors and popes (who continued to use lead, just as they continued to use papyrus when everyone else was using parchment, as I have discussed previously).  But wax seals slowly worked its way down the social ladder, to kings, to great dukes and counts, to lords of castles, to bishops and abbots, to city mayors by the thirteenth century.

Originally the way to seal with wax was to cut a slit in the parchment and dribble soft wax through, then press a signet on both sides (different images, seal and counter-seal).  But soon instead documents began to be sealed by folding up the bottom an inch or so, cutting a slit through both layers, running a cord or a strip of parchment through the slits, and attaching the two ends together with a ball of soft wax that was sealed on both sides.

 

The above image of Magna Carta shows the document King John was forced to sign, with his seal hung off the bottom.

As was the case here, seals were usually colored red.  But cream colored seals (natural wax color) are also found.  In the nineteenth century some collectors cut the seals off charters, just leaving the slits by which they had previously been attached.  Some people living in farms that had once been monastic buildings melted down the seals to make wax to seal their jars of jam.  This is very depressing for medievalists.

 © C. Dale Brittain 2024

For more on medieval documents and other aspects of medieval social history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms. Also available in paperback.