assumed with great probability that it was suggested by the conventional method of representing the sacred nimbus which prevailed from a very early period.
The wax used during this period is generally dark green, and less frequently red or white.
Having before alluded to the secretum or counter-seal, I may here remark that it is of ordinary occurrence on baronial and knightly seals after the year 1200, from which period the use of it may be considered to have been fully established; but not for the purpose of sealing either letters missive or deeds, except in connection with the great-seal. Thus William earl Warenne concludes a letter to Hubert de Burgh, the Justiciary of Henry the Third, entreating pecuniary aid, "and because I have not my great seal with me, I have caused the present letters to be sealed with my private seal[1]."
After the year 1400, personal seals, which are not of armorial character, gradually decline in importance both as to size, style of design, and execution. Thenceforth many represent simply merchants'-marks rudely executed, monograms, or a letter surmounted by a coronet, often the initial of a saint's name, or of the name of the individual, although not entitled to bear the coronet by nobility of birth. Merchants'-marks which appear to have been imitated from the Flemings during the reign of Edward the Third, and became very common during the fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century, both on seals and signet rings, are composed of a private cypher combined with the initials of the owner's name. They offer a somewhat curious field for research, and are often very useful in identifying the persons by whom domestic, and parts of ecclesiastical, edifices on which they occur were built. They were more generally used in the great sea-ports on the eastern coast of England[2] than in the south; a fact which is readily accounted for by the frequent intercourse between those ports and Flanders. It may be observed also that such marks belonged chiefly to woolfactors, or merchants of the staple.
There is another, and most interesting, class of subjects, examples of which are common from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. I allude to those afforded by antique intaglios which
- ↑ "Quia autem magnum sigillum meum mecum non habui, presentes litteras privato sigillo meo feci sigillari." Ancient Letters in the Tower of London, vol. A.
- ↑ A very curious and extensive collection of the merchants'-marks of Norwich, has been formed by W. C. Ewing, Esq., of that city, and will shortly appear at the expense of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society.
