Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/98

68 those countries than in England. There frequent recourse was had to notaries for the attestation of transactions, and the authentication of instruments; whereas here, so great was the credit given to personal seals, that notaries were rarely employed except in ecclesiastical matters; and the use of seals prevailed among all grades and classes of persons, male and female, ecclesiastic and lay, whether secular or regular, bond or free. For every one who had occasion to execute a deed, whether in a transaction relating to land or otherwise, though it were a mere agreement, or a release from a previous agreement, or an acquittance, had need of a seal. And deeds were then used for the most trifling purposes, not being the formidable looking things they are now, but generally little larger than a bank note, and occasionally not containing many more words than a modern receipt. It is sometimes stated that every man who was liable to be sworn on an inquest was required to have a seal, whether he were a bondman or freeman; but the record which has been referred to as an authority for this, namely, the so-called statute of 14. Edw. I., or Statutum Exoniæ (which in fact was not an Act of Parliament, nor is the alleged date of it to be relied on), does not go to that extent. It is confined to those who were to be sworn on certain inquests for inquiring into the conduct of coroners on that particular occasion. It shows, nevertheless, that seals were sometimes used by bondmen; for, failing a proper number of freemen, there were to be bondmen sworn, and all were to have seals and affix them to the presentment. A very large number of personal seals of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, have come down to us; and of their varieties, I cannot give the reader a better notion than by referring him to the very interesting Paper by Mr. Hudson Turner on the subject in the fifth volume of this Journal.

Beside the personal seals of the laity, there were a large number of official seals and common seals of communities, both lay and ecclesiastic; and the seals of the clergy individually were also very numerous. For it may be justly supposed that they were no less necessary for persons in office and bodies corporate than for private individuals; and all the dignities and preferments in the church bore more or less the character of offices, even when they were not strictly