Seals and Sealing Practices

Seals are back on the archival agenda. This is partly due to a series of recent highprofile exhibitions and conferences, partly due to the AHRC-funded Seals in Medieval Wales project based in Aberystwyth and led by the author of this latest British Records Association user guide, and partly due to the launch of over 3000 seal images on The National Archives website. Seals and Sealing Practices provides a very valuable and well-illustrated introduction to this often ignored and often misunderstood subject. How often do we see in some finding aid or catalogue a detailed description of a document to which is limply appended the single, stark word ‘seal’ and sometimes not even that? This guide is the first of its kind on the subject since Jenkinson’s excellent Guide to Seals in the Public Record Office last revised in 1968. It covers such subjects as seals in early medieval Britain (and Wales and Scotland are, incidentally, well represented throughout), royal and government seals, seals of office and personal seals. Of especial use for archivists are the appendices on recording seals, and their preservation and handling. For example, we are reminded that it is essential to read the sealing clause of a document since this might explain why someone else’s seal has been used in conjunction with, perhaps even instead of, that of the party concerned; this should be recorded. The author correctly points out that information about seals is generally not taught to students of history or even of archives, yet they are invaluable sources of identification and evidence. This guide is full of fascinating sigillographic snippets – a clerk’s hands might be warm enough to melt the sealing wax for an impression to be made, what to do if someone brings into a record office a seal die or ‘matrix’, that the colour of certain government seals could indicate the status of the document to which they were attached; and that peasants could own seals (though whether this applied to villeins is debatable). The author highlights the paradox that whilst seals were supposedly personal and unique in order to provide indisputable validation for a document, yet so-called ‘anonymous’ seals devoid of a name in the legend and often identical in design were mass produced and freely bought. Time and again, we are reminded that more research needs to be done. New also provides useful descriptions of the various types of seals used, providing clear guidance as to the Journal of the Society of Archivists Vol. 33, No. 1, April 2012, 113–126