Seals and the Culture of Sealing in Medieval England

Inbunden, Engelska, 2027

1 479 kr

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Beskrivning

This book provides a highly illustrated exploration of late medieval English society and culture through the prism of seals and sealing practices.Drawing on over twenty years work and a range of historical and scientific methodologies, Seals and the Culture of Sealing in Medieval England explores the ways in which men and women, especially from the under-investigated middling and lower levels of society, used seals as a means of identification and representation, and investigates sealing practices in relation to social, cultural, and legal interactions and exchange. The book also considers agency, performance, technology, and trade, as revealed through the matrices and the wax mixture into which seals were impressed, and the places in which the act of sealing was carried out.As Elizabeth A. New explains, seals in medieval England acted in a similar way to modern signatures, credit cards, and logos, and were as familiar a part of everyday life as these things are to us. Yet seals conveyed far more than signing your name or wearing a designer brand, with these dense little packages of image and text identifying and representing individuals from royalty to peasants, as well as offices and institutions. New convincingly argues that seals conveyed carefully constructed messages about power, status, occupation, family, humour, piety, and connections from the very local to the international, and that these small but powerful objects can provide us with fresh perspectives on medieval society as a whole.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2027-02-18
Mått:156 x 234 x 16 mm
Vikt:431 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:304
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN:9781350580824

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Mer om författaren

Elizabeth A. New is Reader in Medieval History at Aberystwyth University, UK. She is the author of Seals and Sealing Practices (2010).

Recensioner i media

This remarkable book is more than an expert analysis of medieval English seals as objects. It the first to adequately recognise the value of seals used by men and women of non-elite status to the wider field of medieval studies. Readably written, and full of fresh information on those aspects of seals that mattered most to medieval people, Seals and the Culture of Sealing in Medieval England will be a front-line resource for scholars working in many disciplines.

Innehållsförteckning

Abbreviations List of illustrationsAcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroductionPart I: Identity1. Motives for Motifs: the imagery of sealsI. An overview of motifsII. Motifs: form and meaningIII. Alike or different? Motifs on matrices with the same owner2. The Language of sealsI. Legend forms: names and anonymous textII. The symbiosis (or otherwise) of image and textIII. Text as imageIV. The languages used for seal legendsV. Seals, popular culture, and oral and written traditionsPart 2: Interaction3. Making an Impression: the use of sealsI. Seals and sealing from the ancient world to the mid eleventh centuryII. The development of a sealing society in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuryIII. Seals and sealing as a social fulcrumIV. ‘My seal’. Borrowing and inheriting matricesV. The use of more than one sealVI. Non-documentary sealing4. ‘He could not deny his seal’. Seals in law, administration, and the economy I. Seals in royal governance and local administrationII. Seals in ecclesiastical administrationIII. Problematic sealing and the misuse of sealsIV. Theft and forgeryPart 3: Exchange5. ‘The medium is the message’. The materiality of sealsI. Seal matricesII. Seal impressionsIII. The decommissioning of seals6. Seals beyond sealingI. Seals in, on, and as other objectsII. Cloth seals: sealing of a different kind?III. From theology to satire: seals in medieval thought, literature and popular cultureIV. Images of seals and seals as imageV. Seals as history: antiquarianism and the emergence of modern scholarshipConclusion BibliographyIndex