may be mentioned as an instance of the occasionally strange application of antiques to signets in medieval times, that a thumb-ring was discovered a few years since in the coffin of an ecclesiastic, in Chichester cathedral, set with an Abraxas gem[1]; the deceased churchman, it may be well believed, had worn it guiltless of all knowledge of Alexandrine pantheism. We can readily account for the number and variety of antique intaglios which occur as seals, during the middle ages, when it is considered that in addition to those which may have been discovered on Roman sites in England, many were brought into the country by pilgrims from Italy and the East, in the belief that they possessed talismanic virtues[2].
The materials of which the matrices of medieval seals were formed is a subject deserving a few remarks. In their character and mode of application to documents, the earliest seals were imitations of metal bullæ, the use of which was first adopted in Europe by the Frankish sovereigns[3]. The bulla itself, partaking rather of the nature of a coin than a seal, could not be struck, even in lead, without a greater degree of trouble and pains than were compatible with the ordinary and frequent use of it; and although pendant metal seals continued to be used ordinarily by some princes, while others employed them only on occasions of particular solemnity, we may reasonably believe that the application of an engraved die to wax was a practice coeval with the earliest use of seals in Europe, as formal attestations of public or private compacts. Lead, from the facility of working it, was naturally first adopted for the seals of the middle and poorer classes of society, and we find accordingly the few matrices of the close of the twelfth and several examples of the thirteenth century, which are preserved, formed of that metal. From the importance attached to their seals by the higher classes, it is probable that those of the nobility, who, imitating royalty, had their great and privy seals, were formed of a superior and more durable substance, probably of silver; but few examples of early date have been preserved. In the thirteenth century a mixed metal resembling
- ↑ An agate, resembling the example in Montf. Antiq. Expl. ii. part ii. p. 353. The ring was of gold, and was found on the right hand thumb-bone of a skeleton, the supposed remains of Seffrid, Bishop of Chichester A.D. 1125. An engraving of it was published by Mr. King.
- ↑ For a curious illustration of the talismanic properties ascribed to antique gems, see the Archæologia, vol. xxx. p. 438.
- ↑ See on this subject Mabillon de Re Diplomatica, and the observations in the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique.
