Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/305

 EXAMPLES OF MEDIEVAL SEALS. 'Ztib charter now in the British Museum was granted in 888 or 889, but I would rather inchne to the latter date. When Mabillon printed tliis charter in 1G81, the original was preserved among the muniments of the cathedral of Chartres, but of its subsequent history nothing has been learnt. In Tab. xxxiv., p. 413, he gives a fac-simile of the first, ninth, and tenth lines of the document, with a very incori'ect outline engraving of the seal, of which he says, p. 138, " Odonis regis sigillum ex diplomate ecclesisD Carnutensis expressum, potiiis vefns a/iquod numisma quam ipsius Odonis imaginem praeferre videtur ; " and again, at p. 4 1 2, " Specimen hoc ex autographo cathedralis ecclesise Carnutensis expressum est, cum sigillo, quod nescio an Odoiiis rcprcesentet effigiem, an cujusdam Imperatoris Romani." But having subsequently met with another seal of Eudes affixed to a charter preserved at Autun, and dated 10 kal. July, a.d. 890, indict. 8, in the third year of the king's reign, he engraved it in his Supple- ment, p. 47, pubhshed in 1704 ; and in the second edition of his work, which appeared in 1709, the passages above stated are altered, and the latter thus appears, p. 412, " Specimen hoc &c., cum sigillo, quod an ipsius Odonis effigiem reprae- sentet, olim mihi dubitatio injecta est, propterea quod nullum lemma in archetype Carnutensi apparebat. Verum banc dubitationem prorsus sustulit aliud ejusdem Odonis authenticum, asservatum in archive ecclesiae Augustodunensis, omnino sanum et integrum, in quo hoc lemma in circulo legitur, ODO gratia dI rex, quo ex sigillo apparet virum eximiie forma? fuisse." By the fault of the artists employed, and want of due examination and comparison on the part of Mabillon, he has been led to consider these two seals as wholly different, but there is every reason to believe that the impressions are both taken from the same matrix. By the drawing in the annexed plate, fig. 1, now for the first time correctly made from the seal of the charter to Ricbodo, it will be seen how little dependence can be placed on Mabillon 's engravings, and how blindly his authority has, in this respect, been followed by Montfaucon, the authors of the Nouveaii TraiU, De Wailly, and many other writers on palaeography and antiquities. The inscription round this seal (erroneously stated by Mabillon not to exist) corresponds, as far as can be read, with the one affixed to the Autun charter, and, allowing for the circumference of the wax, it is of the same