Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/301

EXAMPLES OF MEDIEVAL SEALS. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MODE OF SEALING EN PLACARD. REMARKS ON A SEAL AND CnARTER OF ECDES, KINO OF FRANCE, OP THE YEAR 888 OR 889. The recent acquisition by the Department of MSS. in tiie British Museum of an original charter of Odo (or Eudes) king of France, executed in the year 888 or 889, to which a seal en placard, in remarkably fine preservation, is affixed,^ affords a favorable opportunity of making some remarks in illustration of this mode of sealing, as also on the seal and charter of Eudes, which is now marked Add. Chart. 8516, in the National Collection. It is well known that the usao-e of affi.vhifi a seal of wax to the royal diplomas was practised in France by all the kings of the first two races, and con- tinued by the earlier Capetian monarchs. With the excei^- tion, indeed, of such documents as were sealed with a metallic bulla, either of gold or lead (which on account of the material was obliged to be suspended), it may be assumed with certainty, that no other mode of attaching the seal to regal instruments prevailed in France from the reign of Clovis I. a.d. 481, to the reign of Louis le Gros, A.D. 1108. In the reign of Louis, the practice o{ appendinq the roy^al seal was first introduced,"^ but not entirely to the exclusion of the former mode ; and even after this period instances of the seal plaque are still occasionally to be met with, both in France and Germany, to the close of the twelfth century. It would appear very remarkable, that during the long interval of time which elapsed from the settlement of the Heptarchy to the reign of Edward the Confessor, the Anglo- Saxon sovereigns should have contented themselves with making a simple cross to authenticate their charters, and ' It was purchased at a public auction - The solitary instance noticed by the at Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson's, in Benedictines, Nouv. Traitc, iv. 400, of a Jaiuiary, 1S54, Lot 100, and is supposed seal of Robert II. appended, a. d. I(f2,"), to have been transferred with other MSS. even if genuine, <ioes not affect the at-cu- for sale from Paris. racy of the proposition above.