a stone, piece of metal, or other matter, usually either round or oval, on which are engraven the arms or device of some prince, state, community, magistrate, or private person, often with a legend or inscription.

The use of seals, as a mark of authenticity to letters and other instruments in writing, is extremely ancient. We read of it among the Jews and Persians in the earliest and most sacred records of history; and in the book of Jeremiah there is a very remarkable instance, not only of attestation by seal, but also of the other usual formalities attending a Jewish purchase. In the civil law, also, seals were the evidences of truth, and were required, on the part of the witnesses at least, at the attestation of every testament. But in the times of our Saxon ancestors they were not much in use in England; for though Sir Edward Coke relies on an instance of King Edwyn's making use of a seal about a hundred years before the Conquest, yet it does not follow that this was the usage among the whole nation; and perhaps the charter he mentions may be of doubtful authority, from this very circumstance of its being sealed, since we are assured by all our ancient historians that sealing was not then in common use. The method of the Saxons was, for such as could write to subscribe their names, and, whether they could write or not, to affix the sign of the cross; which custom our illiterate vulgar for the most part observe, by signing a cross for their mark when unable to write their names. And indeed this inability to write, and therefore making a cross in its stead, is honestly avowed by Cedwalla, a Saxon king, at the end of one of his charters. In like manner, and for the same insurmountable reason, the Normans, a brave but illiterate nation, at their first settlement in France used the practice of sealing only, without writing their names; and this custom continued when learning made its way among them, though the reason for doing it had ceased; and hence the charter of Edward the Confessor, to Westminster Abbey, himself being brought up in Normandy, was witnessed only by his seal, and is generally thought to be the oldest sealed charter of any authenticity in England. At the Conquest the Norman lords brought over into this kingdom their own fashions, and introduced waxen seals only, instead of the English method of writing their names, and signing with the sign of the cross. The impressions of these seals were sometimes a knight on horseback, sometimes other devices; but coats of arms were not introduced into seals, nor indeed used at all, till about the reign of Richard I., who, it is said by some, brought them from the crusade in the Holy Land, where they were first invented and painted on the shields of the knights, to distinguish the variety of persons of every Christian nation who resorted thither.

This neglect of signing, and resting only upon the authenticity of seals, remained in Scotland till the year 1540, when a statute was enacted ordering subscription for the purpose of authenticating deeds and writs.