Seals and the Culture of Sealing in Medieval England

This book provides a highly illustrated exploration of late medieval English society and culture through the prism of seals and sealing practices.

Drawing on over twenty years work and a range of historical and scientific methodologies, Seals and the Culture of Sealing in Medieval England explores the ways in which men and women, especially from the under-investigated middling and lower levels of society, used seals as a means of identification and representation, and investigates sealing practices in relation to social, cultural, and legal interactions and exchange. The book also considers agency, performance, technology, and trade, as revealed through the matrices and the wax mixture into which seals were impressed, and the places in which the act of sealing was carried out.

As Elizabeth A. New explains, seals in medieval England acted in a similar way to modern signatures, credit cards, and logos, and were as familiar a part of everyday life as these things are to us. Yet seals conveyed far more than signing your name or wearing a designer brand, with these dense little packages of image and text identifying and representing individuals from royalty to peasants, as well as offices and institutions. New convincingly argues that seals conveyed carefully constructed messages about power, status, occupation, family, humour, piety, and connections from the very local to the international, and that these small but powerful objects can provide us with fresh perspectives on medieval society as a whole.