In his summa De arte prosandi, composed 1275/76, Konrad of Mure makes his statement, well-known at least among sigillographers, that the intitulatio of a written document on the one hand, and the legend and motif of the seal attached to that document on the other, need to conform. It would be absurd, he explains, if someone who styled himself bishop or abbot appended a seal showing a knight or a lion and sporting a legend referring to a count or indeed, vice versa.2 Konrad’s point is that there must not be any discrepancy between the name of the issuer of the charter and the bearer of the seal confirming that charter. But his example also demonstrates that the motif of a seal corresponds at least to some extent to the identity of its bearer. The knight and the lion are identified as typical symbols of secular noblemen.
This paper takes a closer look at the link between the design of a seal and its noble bearer. The focus is directed on the (large) seals of the English earls and the Imperial princes in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.3 To what extent and in which way did these seals convey princely or comital rank? What do the seals reveal about the degree of social differentiation among the higher aristocracy in the respective realms? In trying to answer these questions this article can build on the substantial advances made in research on aristocratic seals in recent years and some of what follows will be familiar to scholars of either the English or the Imperial seals.4 By comparing the English and the German seals the various ways in which they could be deployed to indicate their bearers’ rank will become more clearly visible. The analysis will start with the seals’ physical appearance, then move to their circumscriptions and finally to their design.
Neither the material nor the colour of their seals distinguished Imperial princes and English earls from other nobles in their respective realms. Their seals were made of wax and appeared in varying colours (for example, uncoloured, red or green) just like the seals of other aristocrats. The picture is slightly different if we look at the seal size. Size mattered. A systematic analysis of the size of all surviving English and Imperial seals has not yet been undertaken, but some tentative conclusions can be drawn. In England the seals of the earls were not set apart in size from those of the barons. The barons’ letter to the pope of 1301 amply demonstrates this. That a powerful baron like Henry de Percy had an equestrian seal the same size as comital ones may not come as a surprise, but he was not the only one. Theobald de Verdun or John St John of Halnaker also used equestrian seals that could easily rival those of the earls.5 By contrast, the equestrian seals of earls and barons were notably larger than those of mere knights. Here, a difference in rank can literally be measured.6
In the Empire, too, size varied according to rank. We can identify a dividing line, albeit a fine one, between the Imperial princes and the other aristocrats. The equestrian seals of one of the most prominent princely families, the Wittelsbach counts palatine of the Rhine, for example, were larger than those of the non-princely counts in their neighbourhood in the south-west of the Empire. Between 1214, the year in which the Wittelsbach dukes of Bavaria were invested with the palatinate, and 1400, the year in which Rupert III was elected king of the Romans, the palatine equestrian seals had diameters between 80 and 95mm – with the exception of one seal of Otto II, in use between 1229 and 1231 and which measured 75 mm.7 Their immediate territorial neighbours were the margraves of Baden.8 Both Hermann V (d. 1242/3) and his son Rudolf I (d. 1288) were accorded princely rank by their contemporaries. Their seals measured roughly 75–88 mm. Their successors, however, in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries no longer figured among the Imperial princes. Now we find a neat difference in size between their seals and those of the counts palatine: 60–70 mm was usually the diameter.9
This mechanism also worked in the opposite direction. When in 1336 the count of Juliers was awarded the title of a margrave and elevated to the rank of an Imperial prince,10 he had a new seal made. Measuring 95 mm, this equestrian seal was notably larger than his previous comital one (81 mm). By 1354 he had replaced it with an even larger seal of 97 mm. This was exactly the size of the seal of his neighbour, duke Rainald II of Guelders. Before his promotion to the dignity of a duke and Imperial prince in 133911 Rainald had used smaller equestrian seals. The first one had measured 80mm, the second one 88 mm.12 Yet, the promotion to Imperial dignity did not require an increase of the seal’s size. When another magnate of the lower Rhine, Wilhelm, count of Berg, became duke and Imperial prince in 138013 he had a new seal cut, but it was of the same size as his previous comital one (80 mm).14
These examples show not only the importance accorded to the size of seals as signifiers of rank, they also demonstrate that no fixed rule prescribing the size of comital and princely seals existed. Regional competition appears to have set the standards. In England, too, the regulation of the size of the seals was left to the mechanism of social control. No equivalent of the sumptuary law of 1363 was put in place for seals.15 As a consequence the size of the seals could be used to express social ambitions on both sides of the Channel. In 1262, the royal proctor at the papal court, John of Hemmingford, was asked indignanter why Henry III’s new great seal was larger than the one he used when he had also been duke of Normandy; this, so John was told, was improper.16 Henry was obviously trying to make up for the loss of his continental dominions confirmed by the treaty of Paris in 1259. But, obviously, not everyone bought into this. Half a century later, the seal of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, was about a centimetre larger than that of King Edward II. Allegedly contemporaries thought that this ‘oversize’ revealed Thomas’ treacherous intentions towards Edward.17 This interpretation certainly takes it too far, but Thomas doubtlessly intended to show that he was more than a mere earl.18 A similar case happened in the Empire in the mid-fourteenth century. Duke Rudolf IV of Austria (d. 1365) was not among the four lay electors defined by the Golden Bull in 1356/57. He thus did not belong to this small group who constituted the new princely elite in the Empire. From his point of view this was unacceptable – after all his uncle Frederick, his grandfather Albrecht I and his great-grandfather Rudolph I had all been Roman kings – and thus he took a whole series of actions to compensate for this.19 Having a very large seal was just one of his measures. With a diameter of 120 mm his equestrian seal was 20 mm larger than that of Emperor Charles IV, 30 mm larger than that of the count palatine and also 10 mm larger than that of the duke of Saxony, both of whom were electors.20 Subsequently Rudolf had to destroy his seal by command of Charles IV. This was not due to its size, but to its design and the alltoo-grand titles it attributed to Rudolf.21 In fact, his new seal was even larger than the old one measuring 127 mm.22 This almost childish act of defiance by Rudolf shows once more that the size of the seals was not officially regulated.
If we turn to the seal circumscriptions we see that English earls and, later in the fourteenth century, also English dukes were clearly distinguished from all the others by their comital and ducal title respectively. They alone used the title of comes or dux on their seals. Here, the personal title also alluded to the group of earls or dukes. In the Empire, the title of dux or marchio did not automatically imply that its bearer was an Imperial prince. The dukes of Teck, for instance, or, in the fourteenth century the already mentioned margraves of Baden, did not count among the Imperial princes.23 Nor did the seal’s legend explicitly refer to the rank of an Imperial prince. I know of no case in which princeps imperii was used in a legend. Similarly, there was not one specific term used to refer to the dignity of an electoral prince. When in the course of the fourteenth century some of the princes began to signify their electoral dignity on their seals they did so in different ways. The dukes of Saxony used the title of sacri imperii archimarschalcus in reference to the fact that the electoral right was attached to the arch-office, while, after his accession to the principality in 1390, Count palatine Rupert II added the title sacri imperii elector to the intitulatio on his large seal.24 Yet the legends were not completely devoid of a reference to the Imperial princes as a group. Wilfried Schöntag has shown that in the thirteenth century the circumscription of princely seals continued to name the bearer in the nominative and to use the dei gratia clause, i.e. Lodwicus dei gratia comes palatinus Reni dux Bawarie.25 The seals of non-princely magnates, by contrast, took on the form already widespread in Western Europe: Sigillum followed by the bearer’s title and name in the genitive. The dei gratia clause was not used.26 But again this was not a hard and fast rule. The dukes of Brabant, for example, who were very much part of the western European cultural and political sphere, employed the genitive form of their names and title. At the close of the thirteenth century Duke John II (d. 1312) added the dei gratia clause (Sigillum Iohannis dei gratia ducis …) thus amalgamating the two usages.27 One further qualification should be made. As Schöntag himself pointed out, the nominative form was only used by the secular Imperial princes. The ecclesiastical princes took on the genitive form in the course of the thirteenth century and thus followed the general usage of the Church.28
By far the largest space on a seal was occupied by its motif. It conveyed the seal’s central message. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the mounted knight emerged as the most popular motif on aristocratic seals. Initially common in England and France, it spread to the Empire in the second half of the twelfth century and established itself on ducal and comital seals. Although clearly indicative of high social status the equestrian motif was not, however, compulsory for Imperial princes. The margraves of Brandenburg continued to display their traditional motif of a standing knight until the fourteenth century.29 Nor was the equestrian motif limited to the group of Imperial princes. Counts and, in the course of the thirteenth century, untitled lords (domini; Herren) used this motif as well.30 The mounted knight therefore indicated the affiliation to the ordo of the knights; but it said little about its bearer’s place within the aristocracy.
Yet, the design of an equestrian seal had more to offer than just a mounted knight. The knight could carry a lance with a banner at its top or brandish a sword. In the Empire the older motif of the lance with a banner became associated with the Imperial princes when they started to emerge as the elite aristocratic group towards the end of the twelfth century. The flag symbolised their Imperial fief, the principality.31 Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, used various large seals showing a mounted knight carrying a lance with a banner. After his deposition in 1180 he stopped using these seals. They represented a rank Henry no longer enjoyed. Their further deployment would have been inappropriate.32 In the same decade, Baldwin, count of Hainault, was made margrave of Namur and an Imperial prince.33 Shortly thereafter, in October 1191, he received de jure uxoris the county of Flanders which he held until the death of his wife Margaret of Alsace in November 1194, when the county devolved to their son Baldwin VI. The well-informed chronicler Gislebert de Mons described how these changes affected Baldwin’s seals. As count of Hainault he had used a seal with a diameter of 65 mm depicting a mounted knight brandishing a sword.34 According to Gislebert, Baldwin immediately ceased using this seal once he had been promoted to an Imperial prince. His new seal was of 90 mm diameter and showed a mounted knight carrying a lance with a banner.35 He then went on to modify this seal when he received the county of Flanders, but after the loss of the county he redeployed the seal he had used as margrave of Namur and count of Hainault.36
Although as a rule Imperial princes displayed a lance with a banner on their seals and non-princes a brandished sword, there were prominent exceptions. Notable were the seals of the counts palatine Ludwig I and his son Otto II in the early thirteenth century. Ludwig, duke of Bavaria, and his underage son were almost certainly jointly invested with the Palatinate in 1214.37 A double-sided seal of Ludwig, known to have been in use between 1214 and 1219, depicted on one side a mounted knight carrying a lance with a banner and on the other side a mounted knight brandishing a sword. The legend is heavily damaged and thus it is impossible to know whether both sides bore the same legend or different ones; the palatine title, however, is clearly readable on the side showing the sword. During the years of 1225/6 at least Ludwig used a large equestrian seal naming him as count palatine. The motif was the brandished sword not the lance.38 The same applies to the equestrian seal his son Otto II used after taking over responsibility in the Palatinate in 1228. It showed a brandished sword. It is tempting to relate this choice to the particular judicial authority of the count palatine. According to the Sachsenspiegel, a lawbook composed between 1220 and 1235, the count palatine was to act as judge when the king was put on trial.39 Did the sword refer to this special palatine dignity? At present this can be no more than mere speculation.40 In general, on equestrian seals this motif was associated with non-princely aristocrats or sons of Imperial princes who had not yet been invested with the principality. It is thus not that surprising to see that Otto did not stick to this design. In 1231, when he succeeded to the duchy of Bavaria, he had a new equestrian seal made. This referred to him as duke only and displayed a lance with a banner.41 In the late 1240s he again modified his seal by adding the palatine title to the legend without otherwise changing its design.42 The lance with the banner was apparently the more appropriate symbol for one of the most powerful princes in the realm.
In the course of the fourteenth century, however, the importance of this motif as a sign of princely rank decreased slightly. Wenzel, duke of Luxemburg (from 1354) and, from 1355, also of Brabant, displayed a mounted knight brandishing a sword on his equestrian seal.43 Wilhelm of Berg likewise continued to use a seal depicting a mounted knight brandishing a sword after his elevation to the rank of a duke and Imperial prince in 1380.44 Even among the electors this became an acceptable fashion. Sigismund, margrave of Brandenburg, used this motif and Count palatine Rupert II did so too.45 This suggests that by the second half of the fourteenth century the princely rank had become so firmly established and the social difference between the princes and the other aristocrats so clearly discernible that even newly created princes could afford not to display the lance with the banner on their large equestrian seals.
In the long run this development helped to pave the way for the establishment of the great armorial seal which, however, played no role in the Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The bearer’s coat(s) of arms were displayed on the shield of the mounted knight, on the caparison, sometimes on the banner and the background of the seal.46 It was on the smaller, less authoritative secret seals that the coat of arms dominated the design. Looking at the coat of arms placed upon the large equestrian seals there is one development in the fourteenth century that deserves special mention in the context of this paper: namely, some of the electors introduced particular shields to signify their special rank. The dukes of Saxony inserted a shield of crossed swords referring to their Imperial office of an arch-marshal and hence the electoral dignity, while Rupert II added a blank red shield to the great seal of the counts palatine. Both corresponded to the newly inserted titles (archimarschalcus, elector) in the legend of their seals.47 Again, these were individual signs referring to the bearer’s principality to which the electoral right was attached. A uniform symbol used by all electors to denote their rank on their shields did not exist. It was left to the electors to create their own signs.
In England, the seal bearing a mounted knight was introduced by William the Conqueror. On William’s seal the knight carried a lance, but soon the lance was replaced by the apparently more chivalric symbol of the brandished sword. This design of the equestrian seal rapidly spread throughout the ranks. Earls, barons and knights made use of it,48 but just as in the Empire it was not obligatory for earls, barons or knights to use this design. Hugh de Neville (d. 1234), for example, used a seal displaying a man slaying a lion, another chivalric motif.49 In contrast to the Imperial princes, the earls did not develop a specifically comital corporate design. In thirteenth-century England, therefore, the equestrian seal declared the membership of its bearer to the knightly ordo, but it said little about his place within the aristocracy. This, however, also meant that an earl did not necessarily require the image of a mounted knight brandishing a sword to communicate his comital status. This relative freedom in choosing a seal motif helps to explain why in England, in contrast to the Empire, the great armorial seal became a true alternative to the equestrian seal as early as the thirteenth century. The armorial seal referred very prominently to its bearer’s identity, his family, and, once coats of arms had become firmly attached to lordships, also to his (claimed) titles.50 Yet, T. A. Heslop has shown that the rise of the great armorial seal was neither straightforward nor fast.51 A number of thirteenth-century earls opted for a compromise, the double-sided seal.52 In England, as in the Empire, a double-sided seal could be used to display two different dignities held by its bearer. Roger de Quincy (d. 1264), earl of Winchester and constable of Scotland, deployed the obverse to show his comital dignity and the reverse to signal his Scottish dignity.53 While the obverse showed a classic equestrian motif, the reverse displayed a knight on foot fighting a lion and bearing on his shield the Quincy coat of arms.54 In most cases, however, the earls and barons used double-sided seals to show the equestrian motif on one side and their coat of arms on the other (the coat of arms was, of course, also depicted on the equestrian side, e.g. on the shield). This design thus combined two messages: affiliation to the knightly order and, more specifically, to a particular aristocratic family and its lordship(s).
A double-sided seal, perhaps the most famous belonging to an English earl in the fourteenth century, is of particular interest in this context. In 1346, John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, confirmed his grant to King Edward III with a seal showing on the obverse a person sitting on a throne and on the reverse an equestrian seal (Fig. 4.1).55 The use of a throne on a seal of an English magnate was absolutely exceptional56 and only the absence of royal insignia and the depiction of a warren in the background made clear that the person sitting on the throne was not a king. The legend on the obverse names John as earl of Warenne and Strathearn and count palatine. William St John Hope, who was the first to describe and discuss this seal, pointed to the Scottish lordship of Strathearn as the cause of this unusual design. It is worthwhile to pursue this suggestion a little further. In 1334, the Scottish parliament headed by Edward Balliol awarded the earldom of Strathearn to John de Warenne, ‘Edward III’s beloved and faithful kinsman’ and nephew of Balliol’s wife Isabella de Warenne.57 John had supported Edward III’s and thus Edward Balliol’s campaign for the Scottish throne. Strathearn was among his rewards. Until this date the earls of Strathearn neither carried the title of count palatine nor had a man sitting on a throne been depicted on their great seals.58 These were new features that came with John’s appointment and must have been approved by Edward Balliol, if not by Edward III himself. The image therefore certainly did not imply the usurpation of a royal sign and royal rights by John de Warenne, but, on the contrary, their voluntary devolvement from the Crown to John. He represented royal power in Strathearn (whether English or Scottish is probably a moot point) and the imitation of the royal seal symbolised the quasi-regal authority of a count palatine. Interpreted in this way this image did not differ too much from those used on the seals of royal officials (a castle, or the king’s head) that identified their bearers as representatives of royal authority.59
In practice John’s new seal made little, if any impression in Scotland. His rule as count palatine remained by and large theoretical. This may not have mattered greatly to John. His English earldom was more important to him as can be seen by the fact that Strathearn came last in his intitulatio. What appears to have made this dignity so attractive to John was the possibility of deploying a unique image on his seal, an image linking him closely to the king and setting him apart from the other magnates. We do not know when John had his seal cut. It is likely that he did so shortly after being invested with his palatine dignity, but a later date cannot be ruled out. The impression appended to his charter issued on 1 April 1346 is the only one that is known. In any case, John’s seal remained exceptional among lay magnates.60 Henry, duke of Lancaster, for instance, did not portray his palatine rights in any special way on his great seal. He stuck to the principle of a classic double-sided seal: a mounted knight on one side and the coat of arms on the other (Fig. 4.2). As duke he may not have felt such a great urgency to stress his palatine authority, or perhaps he preferred the Lancastrian coat of arms (three leopards and a label of three points) which indicated closeness to the royal family, but all this is mere speculation.61