SIGILLOGRAPHY

the study of seals. A sealing is the impression made by the impact of a hard engraved surface on a softer material, such as clay or wax, once used to authenticate documents in the manner of a signature today; the word seal (Latin sigillum; old French scel) refers either to the matrix (or die) or to the impression. Seals are usually round or a pointed oval in shape or occasionally triangular, square, diamond, or shield-shaped. Medieval matrices were usually made of lattena kind of bronzeor of silver. Ivory and lead were occasionally used, gold very rarely. Steel was used from the 17th century. Matrices could include intaglio gems. The usual material for the impression was sealing wax, made of beeswax and resin, often coloured red or green. In southern Europe, notably in the papal Curia, lead and occasionally gold were used. Shellac, the wax used today, was introduced in the 16th century. Seals were used to establish the authenticity of such documents as charters and legal agreements and for the verification of administrative warrants. In southern Europe, early medieval documents were drawn up by notaries and authenticated with their written signa, but this never replaced seals in northern Europe. Forgeries were manufactured as early as the 12th century, indicating how important seals had become. From that time, also, seals were used to close folded documents and thus to guarantee their secrecy. Seals were also used to affirm assent; for example, by a jury. Under the Statute of Cambridge (1388), sealed letters were used in England for the identification of people and their places of origin. Sigillography is used to assist other historical studies. Many impressions have survived from the medieval period. Those attached to documents are most valuable, because the documents may date their use precisely and the seal may confirm the documents' authenticity. Unattached seals may still provide useful evidence from their inscription or design. Fragmentary seal impressions are often difficult to interpret. Fewer matrices have survived and often without related impressions. Seals often reflect the taste of the owner. They provide evidence for changes in fashion in both secular and ecclesiastical costume and for the development of armour. Seals indicate heraldry before the earliest rolls of arms and are an original source for armorial bearings, which thereby enables the historian to trace the distinctions or alliances between various families and so contributes to genealogy. Craftsmen's seals often display tools connected with trade. Depictions of towns, churches, castles, and monasteries, although conventional, can often aid the architectural historian. Seals can also be used profitably for studying ancient ships, particularly their shape and details of masts and rigging. The main difficulty in studying seal designs is that they were often conservative, especially since seals were often replaced with an exactly similar design. John Cherry the study of seals. A sealing is the impression made by the impact of a hard engraved surface on a softer material; the word seal can refer to either the hard surface or the impression. Sigillography is helpful in historical studies because the seal attached to a document may provide proof of its authenticity. Sigillography is the study of both the instrument (matrix, or die) that makes the impression and the mark that is imprinted on the wax or other soft material. The seal was used as the signature is today: to authenticate a document. The matrix was made of either bronze or silver in medieval times and of steel after the 17th century. The soft substance that took the impression of the seal in the Middle Ages was a green or red wax made of beeswax and resin. After the 16th century, shellac was, and continues to be, used. Medieval charters or deeds were authenticated by the official seal attached to them. By the 12th century, documents were folded and wax seals affixed to ensure secrecy. Letters sealed in this way attested to the identification and origin of people in 14th-century England. Seals attached to documents are of historical interest, especially in dating and validating them. More wax seals have survived than matrices, and these imprinted pictures often give clues to the dress, arms, tools, ships, and architecture of the period. Seals were either cylinders or stamps, although scarabs were used in Egypt and signet rings in Rome. Prominent men and women, as well as kings and administrators, had their own seals and used them as modern man uses his signature. Wax seals were also used to secure the knots of the cord that tied bales, jars, and boxes. When written documents were introduced in ancient Mesopotamia, they were usually inscribed on clay tablets. The appropriate seal was pressed into the clay before it hardened. Tablets of this kind, mainly contracts, accounts, and letters, were encased in an outer clay envelope that also bore the seal. Letters were marked with the sender's seal on the outside to identify him and to verify the contents. Treaties between nations that bear royal seals have been recovered. Papyrus sheets used for Egyptian documents were pasted together, written on, rolled, and tied with cord. The knot was covered with wax and imprinted with a seal. The use of this type of document spread outside Egypt, and it is possible to trace the development of seals through them. They are particularly interesting to art historians, but because of the wide range of objects depicted on the seals, they also help trace the cultural development of nations. When seals bear inscriptions, they confirm the existence of rulers, define trade negotiations, and provide genealogical information. Medieval European seals, like those of ancient Rome, were used in law courts. From the 11th to the 14th century, the use of seals became so widespread that, by 1400, ready-made metal matrices were available even to small landowners. However, the highest level of artistry in making seals occurred in the 13th century, and the names of the craftsmen who produced those singular objects are still known today. Medieval seals were either single or double; that is, they could imprint one or both sides of the wax. Double sealing made it more difficult to detach and therefore provided more security. Sealing both sides was possible only when the seal was appended to the document, hanging from it by a strip of parchment or cord. Seals were either appended or applied to the surface of the document and often bore the name of the owner. The growth of the government in England can be traced by its use of seals. The Great Seal (showing a seated monarch and royal insignia), first used in the 11th century, was augmented by smaller seals and finally by the Privy Seal, the keeper of which was a minister of state. As the power of the seal grew, the king found it necessary to adopt a private, sometimes secret, seal for his correspondence. Religious seals, like royal ones, had appropriate designs: a bishop, a saint, or a religious scene. Monastic seals, town seals, commercial seals, and personal seals all offer a gallery of scenes from medieval life. As more people learned to write, signatures replaced seals, but as late as the 19th century, tiny seals were kept in men's watch pockets to seal letters before there were sealable envelopes. Seals in China and Japan did not have the status of those in other parts of the world. They confirmed a signature but were not accepted as legal proof of identification. Their fanciful designs in red ink marked possessionsboxes, books, and paintings. Additional reading The best general account is Sir Hilary Jenkinson, Guide to Seals in the Public Record Office (1954). Joseph H. Roman, Manuel de sigillographie franaise (1912), is a longer study mainly on French seals. The basic catalog for European seals and impressions is Walter de Gray Birch, Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vol. (18871900). Seal matrices are discussed by Alec B. Tonnochy in the Catalogue of British Seal-Dies in the British Museum (1952). Alfred B. Wyon, The Great Seals of England from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (1887), provides a systematic and well-illustrated account of English Great Seals. A full discussion of Classical seal use, with bibliography and occasional reference to Near Eastern sources, is given in the article Signum, by Wenger in Pauly-Wissowa Real-Encyclopdie, vol. 2, col. 23612448 (1923); and details of use in the Aegean and Greece are conveniently given in John Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings (1970). No adequate study exists of the uses of seals in ancient western Asia. See at present, however, Elena Cassin, Le Sceau: un fait de civilisation dans la Msopotamie ancienne, Annales, pp. 742751 (1960); and M.I. Rostovtseff, Seleucid Babylonia: Bullae and Seals of Clay with Greek Inscriptions, Yale Classical Studies 3:1114 (1932). A very full bibliography of ancient Eastern seal publications from which information on use may be gleaned is given by Hans H. von der Osten in Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mr. Edward T. Newell, pp. 168190 (1934); and in Altorientalische Siegelsteine der Sammlung Hans Silvius von Aulock, pp. 156219 (1957), but no more recent convenient bibliography exists; systematic study of use must depend mainly on the examination of sealed texts. For Egypt, P.E. Newberry, Scarab-Shaped Seals (1907), provides a brief account, now much in need of revision. Books on Chinese and Japanese seals deal mainly with those of painters, calligraphers, and collectors. Robert H. van Gulik, Chinese Pictorial Art As Viewed by the Connoisseur (1958), has the most illuminating discussion of the artist's use of seals. See also Victoria Contag and Wang Chi-ch'ien, Seals of Chinese Painters and Collectors of the Ming and Ch'ing Periods, rev. ed. (1966); and Ch'en Chih-mai, Chinese Calligraphers and Their Art (1966).