Seal Types

Seals survive both as matrices and as impressions, though impressions are more common. A matrix may be of various kinds. Seals of royalty, great aristocrats and important institutions usually used a circular matrix. Sometimes there were two matrices, a seal and a counterseal, so that the wax impression which resulted would be two sided, with a different design on each side. Circular seals are known as coin seals because they resemble a coin. Coin seals vary considerably in size, but royal seals were often large. Richard III’s great seal, for example, was 900mm in diameter. The seal of a middle-ranking aristocrat would be smaller; perhaps around 350mm in diameter. Fifteenth-century great royal seals normally showed the king galloping on horseback, with drawn sword and a shield bearing the royal arms. In the early middle ages great aristocrats had used similar designs, but by the fifteenth century most of them avoided what had by then come to be seen as a royal pattern. (Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the seal of ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’ is an exception.) Instead most noblemen used seals which depicted their arms, often with the shield couché (inclined at a 45 degree angle) beneath a large helm.

Prior to the fifteenth century pointed oval designs, called vesica seals, were popular with noble women and also with high ranking ecclesiastics. The shape allowed room either to depict a full length standing figure of the owner, or alternatively to show scenes at two levels. Monastic seals often used the latter device, with a main, upper register depicting the monastery’s patron saint, and a small lower register in which the prior or abbot was shown praying. By the fifteenth century, vesica seals were somewhat out of fashion, but they still occur on documents, because monasteries in particular tended to continue using seal matrices made years — or sometimes centuries — earlier.

By the fifteenth century, use of seals was widespread. One nobleman is said to have remarked acidly that in earlier times it had not been the custom for every Tom, Dick and Harry to use a seal. Most seals were quite small, and the most common forms of matrix were the pyramid seal (a small, usually circular design with a stem on the back, by which it could be held) and the signet, which could be of any shape (but was often circular or oval) and comprised the bezel of a ring.

Seal impressions are usually of wax, though royal and papal seals were sometimes impressed in metal such as lead, or even gold. Such metal impressions were called bullæ. (This word is the origin of the expression ‘papal bull’, referring to a sealed letter from the pope.) Seal impressions were not directly attached to their documents, but hung from them on small strips of parchment or (for persons of high rank) silk threads.

C1300 Solid silver medieval vessica seal 62.1g, 21.96mm L x 18.81mm x 5.51mm W (excluding hanger)

Medieval seal matrix