X.— The Great Seal of England

So far as is known the earliest Norman Kings had only one seal with which to authenticate any written orders or communications which issued in their name: under his Great Seal the King would agree to a treaty or order payment for his wine, summon a sheriff to account or bestow an earldom, arrange his own marriage or the legal affairs of one of his subjects; and in the original documents under this seal which have survived to us from the twelfth century, even in those which we find in the enrolments of the early thirteenth, may be traced every important element which we find in executive administration by Government departments to-day; not to mention those which might be discerned in the private correspondence of the sovereign. But very early it was found that it was impossible for one seal to deal with the resulting mass of business or to cope with the situation which arose when the King (with the Chancellor in his company) was absent from the usual seat of Government: the Dialogus de Scaccario tells us that already in the twelfth century there was a second seal which was kept by the Chancellor in the Treasury per vicarium As executive business developed and increased in succeeding centuries other seal developments followed: notably the addition to the resources of royal administration of the Privy and Secret Seals and of the Signets, which are the direct ancestors of the seals that still symbolize the authority of a secretary of state. But meanwhile the principle of dividing the Great Seal itself was also extended and much used: and it is with these deputies or departmental versions of the Great Seal that the present article is to deal

Ancient history · Business · Political science · Treasury · Treaty · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Scottish History and National Identity · Finance

• The seals of the Scottish Court of Exchequer

  Athol L Murray, Charles J Burnett•Proceedings of the Society of…•1994

  Incluir item

• The Seals of the Lord Edward

  Open Access•J R Studd•The Antiquaries Journal•1978

  Incluir item

• I.— The Wilton Diptych—A Re-examination

  Open Access•John H Harvey•Archaeologia•1961

  Incluir item

• On the Chancery of Monmouth

  Thomas Wakeman•Journal of the British…•1858

  Incluir item

• The Seals of the Two Benches under Edward III

  B Wilkinson•The English Historical Review•1927

  Incluir item