Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne, 1243). A
walled city. Photograph courtesy of
Archives Nationales, Paris.
Jeanne the grocer (1315). A woman
holding two scales, Photograph
courtesy of Archives Nationales, Paris.
Seals drew their power as effective agents of authentication from a dual legacy. The
first results from a specific pattern of diffusion. From ca. 450 to ca. 1050, documentary
sealing had remained an exclusively royal prerogative, an as yet unchallenged expression
of public authority, which thereafter spread to magnates, male and female, ecclesiastical
and lay. From ca. 1050 to ca. 1200, nonroyal seals were used solely by such elites in
emulating, claiming, and exercising ruling status, arrogating to themselves regalian
rights, among them that of seal usage. The second legacy involves the tradition, unbroken
since the early Middle Ages, of exchanging symbolic objects, such as knives, whips, and
handles, as evidence of agreement or transaction. As legal titles came to depend
increasingly on written records by the early 13th century, the seal provided both an
authoritative guarantee derived from its previously royal character and the tangibility of a
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1640