They speak of authority and legitimacy, and the iconography and legend (around the seal circumference) often suggest something about the status of the owner and how they wanted to be regarded. Seals can tell us much about a seal owner.
They could either be attached to a document by a tag, tongue, cord, or placed directly on the face of the document. Seals were also used literally to ‘seal’ documents, fulfilling the same role today as gum on an envelope. Often bearing their owner’s portrait or coat of arms they were used to authenticate documents (such as charters, letters, writs) in much the same way as we use signatures today. The term seal is usually applied to the impression left by the stamping of an engraved metal die or ‘matrix’ which has been pressed into a material such as wax, but it is also used to refer to the matrix itself. Seal used by Henry of Lancaster, Edward I’s nephew, in 1301 (catalogue reference: E 26/1)
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