SEALS. The word "seal" (Lat. sigillum, O.Fr. scel) is em ployed as a term to describe both the implement for making the impression, and the impression itself ; this article will be confined to the latter usage only, except when the seal is referred to as the matrix. In the East the age-old custom of using the seal as a stamp of authentication of a document is parallel to the western habit of inscribing a signature. However, the seal is sometimes used in Europe and America for the same purpose, especially in the case of sovereigns, courts, officials, bishops, States, corpora tions, etc. The subject is treated here under two heads: (I) European, and (2) Japanese and Chinese.
The practice of sealing is of great antiquity; gems and cylinder seals were used in the ancient world. But the custom died out in the West on the fall of the western Roman Empire, and except that bullae were used by the popes from the middle of the 7th century, and very debased examples by the Merovingian kings, it was not revived until the Carolingians under Pippin (d. 768). The seals then employed were either antique gems or copies, gen erally set in a mount on which the legend was engraved. This use of gems continued throughout the middle ages. Under the Saxon emperors the seal began to approximate the normal later type, consisting of a figure or half-figure surrounded by the legend. Apart from papal bullae, Edward the Confessor seems to have originated the pendent double seal, which was not used in France until the beginning of the 12th century.
At one time or another almost everyone had a seal, and while the private individual was generally content with one, sovereigns had a great seal, privy seal and signet, as well as seals for their courts and officials, and for customs and staples. Bishops and corporations had a great seal, and sometimes a seal ad causas for ordinary business. Bishops and other dignitaries also frequently had a secret or private seal and a signet.
The matrix was usually of latten or silver, but occasionally of gold, ivory, lead or other material. To ensure the impressions being correctly centred, double seals usually had two or more pierced lugs through which pins were passed and fre quently a cross or nick engraved on the rim of each half. Occa
sionally double seals were hinged together. Single seals were fitted with a handle, the most common being a six-sided cone terminating in a trefoil. A few matrices had the centre made to screw out about inch, enabling the device to be used without the legend. The great majority of seals are circular, but bishops generally used a vesica form, not from any religious significance but because a standing figure could thus be more artistically accommodated. For the same reason standing figures of ladies are placed on a vesica seal. Oval seals became common in the i6th century, and square, lozenge- and shield-shaped matrices are also found.
The names of several engravers are known. Roman in his Manuel gives a list of French engravers and in Eng land may be mentioned Luke, who about ii8o made the seal of Exeter and by analogy that of Taunton, Walter de Ripa, the en graver of the first great seal of Henry III., Derrick Anthony, the engraver of the second great seal of Elizabeth, the design for which was by Nicholas Hilliard the miniaturist, and, greatest of all, Thomas Simon who made the seals of Cromwell and Charles II.
The impressions themselves are generally of wax, but leaden bullae were used by the popes and in parts of southern Europe. Golden bullae were occasionally employed by the popes and western emperors, while Edmund Crouchback used one as titular king of Sicily, and Henry VIII. and Francis I. for sealing the treaty of 1527.
Seals were attached to the deed either by impression on its face or by suspension. The former was the earlier system with the exception of bullae, and although in England suspended seals came in in the 11th century, in France impression on the deed continued till the beginning of the 12th and intermittently until its close, to be revived before the end of the 13th. For suspending seals, either a piece of the deed was cut along one edge and the seal impressed on the tag thus made, or the deed was pierced and a piece of parchment or a cord of twisted silk passed through, doubled back and joined together by the seal. Towards the end of the middle ages sealing direct on the document came into general use again.