Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/20

8 brass, the manufacture of which was long confined to Cologne, was commonly used for the matrices of seals, and continued to be the material usually employed until the sixteenth century. Silver matrices of personal seals are of rare occurrence.

With these preliminary observations on the general character of medieval seals, I shall now proceed to submit a plan for their classification according to subjects, under three main divisions, as regards time, already suggested.

—From the eleventh to the close of the twelfth century.

The devices on secular seals are, mounted knights; effigies of females; Agnus Dei; birds, eagles or falcons; animals, commonly lions; varieties of the draconine type; a conventional flower, fleur-de-lisé in character; stars and crescents diversely arranged.

It has been supposed that the birds, animals, flowers, &c. which appear on seals late in this period, were, on the introduction of heraldry, adopted by the individuals who had borne them, as part of their armorial ensigns; but a careful examination of a number of examples shews that such was not the fact; armorial bearings on the seals of the same persons are generally composed of heraldic charges wholly different.

—From the year 1200 to the year 1400.

The subjects on seals may be thus classed; 1. Heraldic devices; and, on smaller seals, cognisances or crests. 2. Birds, animals, flowers, &c., as in the earlier period, on the seals of ordinary persons. 3. Rebuses on christian or surnames, 4. Symbols of crafts. 5. Grotesques and, apparently, satirical devices. 6. Effigies of patron saints, often of the saint after whom the owner was named; and devotional subjects in general, as Agnus Dei, Ave Maria, the head of St. John the Baptist, all of which were probably regarded as possessing talismanic virtues; symbols of the Evangelists, &c. 7. Merchants'-marks, coronetted letters, and minor devices of great variety, but not of a remarkable character.

—From 1400 to 1500.

We find the former types repeated throughout this century, marked by inferior execution.

In a future number I propose to consider the subjects above enumerated in detail, and to illustrate them by engravings of dated examples.