Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/278

 270 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April go, the two departments agree ; a charter enrolled on the Charter Roll and letters patent enrolled on the Patent Eoll will be made up by the engrossing department and prepared for sealing in a fashion appropriate to their importance. The most elaborate documents will have the honour of a pendent seal with a lace or a double slip of parchment passed through the parchment of the document to receive the seal. The less elaborate ones will have a seal a simple queue, fixed on a broad tongue cut along the base of the document with the seal fixed at one end ; and below this will be a very narrow slip cut the whole width of the document, and doubtless meant to be wrapped round it, when folded or ' plied ' for transmission. In any case the document can be opened and read and refolded without breaking or damaging the seal. In a note on p. 137 of vol. i Mr. Salter seems to consider this method of make-up as characteristic of letters close. It is dangerous to differ with Mr. Salter, but in this case I incline to think that he has come to a wrong conclusion. This method is the normal make-up of letters patent and charters meant to be sealed a simple queue. The story of the engrossing of letters enrolled on the Close Roll is harder to understand. From the reign of Henry III, at any rate, the Close Roll shows two kinds of letters issued under seal, those marked by the note ' et postea ista littera fuit signata patenter ' or ' et erat patens ', or some such words, and those bearing no note at all. It cannot be assumed that the enrolling clerks inserted this note systematically, but it is clear that they recognized two kinds of letters as enrolled on the Close Roll, those made up ' open ' and those made up ' closed '. Any collection of letters close, if examined, will be found to contain both kinds. The letters made up ' open ' are made up and sealed in the manner already described as employed in the case of letters patent and charters a simple queue, and like these can be opened and reclosed without damaging the seal. The letters made up ' closed ', on the other hand, have one narrow tongue cut across the foot of them ; the seal is affixed not at the end, but across the middle of the slip ; beyond the seal on the slip the address is written ; and the letter could not be opened without breaking the seal. In fact, specimens in which any portion of the seal remains are rare, and in the case of returned letters close preserved in the Public Record Office seal and slip have usually both disappeared. In consequence the method in which the letters were sealed and closed is occult to modern observa- tion, although one is in the habit of speaking about it with as much familiarity as one might use with an envelope. Even the seal used for letters close is not free from peculiarities. Just as there are two species of letters close, so there are two species of seals : letters are sealed sub pede sigilli or are left without any note of the seal used. With admirable and scholarly reticence Mr. Salter, in describing the seals affixed to these documents, has refrained from describing them as great seals, and has confined himself to the phrase royal seals. The wisdom of such reticence is profound ; for the fact is that we only assume that letters close made up ' closed ' were sealed with the Great Seal at all ; and the current interpretation of the words sub pede sigilli as meaning the half-seal, i.e. the reverse of the Great Seal, is nothing more than an ingenious conjecture, resting partly on the authority of Mr. W. H. Steven-