 I'm going to start straight away by simply introducing Dr. Rachel Davis. Her university career has taken her from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to the University of Edinburgh where she completed her doctorate in 2020. She's now, among other things, working on Astles Scottish Seals, which were published in the Antiquaries volume Vettusta Monumenta. And there's an online scholarly edition facsimile and comments being edited by Noah Herringman of the University of Missouri. And she is working on the heraldic seals in Scotland. So it's with very great pleasure that I hand over to you, Rachel. Thank you, John. Just get my PowerPoint up. Okay. So before I begin, I would like to thank the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, who partly funded my PhD research on women's seals and charters in late medieval Scotland. I would also like to thank the Scottish Historical Review Trust, whose bursary has funded research for this paper. Some of the seals and ideas I'll be discussing here today also appear in a forthcoming article I have titled, material evidence, re-approaching elite women's seals and charters in late medieval Scotland, which is due to be published in volume 150 of the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, later this year in November. The seal of Isabella Countess of Fife features a tree from which two branches extend downward. Shields hang from these branches on either side of the tree. The dexter right shield bears a lion rampant, the arms of Fife, her natal lineage. The dexter shield on the left bears a fest chequey, the arms of Stuart, one of her marital families. The seal design differs from what we might expect of an elite woman's seal in the Middle Ages. For one, there is no female figure. A predominant feature of women's seals on the continent and in Britain in the 12th and 13th centuries. However, when considered alongside other elite women's seal designs from the 14th and 15th centuries in Scotland, the ways in which her identity was constructed bears similarities to other extant impressions belonging to elite women from the late medieval period. The paper aims to move discussion beyond what Brigitte Betos-Rezac termed the semantics of the female image and show that female use of heraldry in their seals is a significant and rich vein of further research into the ontological meaning of sealing in medieval Britain. The paper is guided by two overarching questions. First, how do women's seals show evolution in heraldic convention and sealing praxis in Scotland in the 14th and 15th centuries? Second, was women's use of heraldry formulaic? Investigating these questions will show significant changes in women's seal design from the late 13th to mid 15th centuries. The evidence demonstrates women's participation in the emerging practice of marshaling arms to accommodate their complex and varied relationships to elite lineage and landed titles. I will argue that women's use of heraldry was by no means formulaic. Rather, the arrangement of arms within a seal communicated a woman's personal identity as a member of the aristocracy in so much as we can say this was an indicator of the personal self. We might think of elite seals as an extension of an individual's public facing self, thus the iconography included even if personal was used to communicate links most advantageous to an individual's exercise of power and authority. This project sought out impressions and cast belonging to elite Scottish women from around 1296 to roughly 1460. Thus far, I have identified 54 seals. I began my research with the Scottish seal catalogs compiled by Henry Lang, William Ray McDonald and John Horne Stevenson and Marguerite Wood. I also consulted the catalog of British Museum material compiled by Walter de Grey Birch listed here on the left. I used these catalogs as a starting point, and then I further consulted materials held in the following archives listed here on the right. It's worth noting that further repositories were consulted with negative results, including private collections identified through the National Records and Archives of Scotland, the Manuscript Commission reports, PIS, SCRAN, Canmore and Treasure Trove Holdings of the National Museum of Scotland. It's also worth saying that Scottish Sigalography, the seal cast produced by Lang, that for Scottish Sigalography excuse me, the seal cast produced by Lang in the 19th century and Stevenson and Wood in the early 20th century remain a vital link for historians in Scotland as impressions affixed to documents survive precariously. While the findings presented here today take in the heraldic devices of women seals surveyed in impressions and casts. And in one instance an illustration, I want to note that there are subtle differences in these types of source material. This paper specifically is going to trace women's use of heraldry. I won't go further into methodological concerns here, but I have dealt with this more broadly in my work, and I'm happy to answer any questions relating to this after the paper. The title of Stevenson and Woods 1940 volume conveys a sense of comprehensiveness, even an exhaustion of the archives to indicate the extent of Scottish seals, particularly when it comes to heraldic ones. However, recent work on the part of Adrian nails and David and Bertie has demonstrated the possibility of quote new seals, not included in Scottish seal catalogs. Bertie and his work on Scottish Bishop seals has further observed issues of inaccuracy within the descriptions of seals in these catalogs. My work as well has indicated errors in description when compared to physical evidence. So far I've identified six new seal impressions belonging to Scottish women from the 14th and 15th centuries, which were missed out in earlier cataloging efforts. These are included here on the left. I've also identified two casts, not included in Scottish catalogs but do appear in the catalog for British Museum material listed here on the right. I mentioned this to highlight the still untapped potential for further study into Scottish ceiling and the seal catalogs and that the seal catalogs by no means represent the fullness of surviving material. I think it's worth noting the differences between current research interests and the past motivations of catalog compilers. While heraldic devices employed by women were noted by catalogers in the 19th and 20th centuries, they were not necessarily considered significant amongst amongst Scottish seals. Illustrative and photographic plates more often featured examples of men's seals, particularly those belonging to royals, magnates and important bishops, rather than the seals of women and those of the lower nobility, with even less attention paid to non-elite seals. I would argue that there's still much more to be gleaned from the meaning of seals using heraldic devices and how this iconography was employed by women to communicate political and personal links. If we begin with the seals on the left of Margaret Brinsason and David Gila Crawford, which survive attached to homage roles to Edward I from the 1290s, we can see the shifts in heraldic and ceiling convention by the mid 15th century, with the seal of Mary Stuart, Countess of Angus and Lady of Logrum on the right here. The comparison of these seals side by side highlights these changes in Scotland. First, we notice a change in shape with the 13th century seals using an oval shape. This shape of seal for women seems to have fallen out of fashion fairly early in the 14th century in Scotland, with women's seals using a round shape like the 1459 seal of Mary Stuart more often. We also notice a difference in iconography. The earlier seals use the female figure compared to the armorial seal of the 15th century. In addition, the heraldry has changed. We see single, albeit in distinct shields in Margaret Brinsason and David Gila Crawford seals, whereas we see the marshaled arms of Mary Stuart on the right. The stark differences between the seal designs of the late 13th century and the mid 15th century show the evolution in ceiling praxis and heraldic convention amongst Scottish women in the later Middle Ages. The rest of this paper will trace these evolutions. The 54 seals that make up this study are armorial in that they use a heraldic device in their visual field, as well as other iconographic elements from older ceiling conventions. Of these seals, only two feature heritable insignia not on a shield, meaning they use iconography that is associated with heraldry, but it's not within the visual field of a shield. I viewed these as seal casts taken from seals attached to charters dated before 1340. The remaining 52 of the seal impressions and casts incorporate one or more coats of arms to display women's connections to different elite lineages. Most commonly women represented their lineage in their seals through the display of a single shield, although this was not as straightforward as it may appear. The number of single scoochians found in the seal designs of elite Scottish women reflects the proliferation of marshaled arms during the later 14th century in Scotland, which allowed elites to express their complex relationships to lineage and power more succinctly. We might return then to the seal of Margaret Stuart from our previous slide to demonstrate this. The Countess's seal features a single shield, but in fact shows three lineages. The right side of the shield shows quartered arms with the lion rampant at the top representing Angus and a heart and chief three stars at the bottom representing Douglas, both of which were families she was related to by marriage. On the left side of the shield we see a lion rampant within a double Tresura, the Royal Arms of Scotland, which were her natal lineage. The use of heraldry by elite women in their seals has been interpreted as largely formulaic. When interpreting seals using the female figure, the woman has been described as a bodily link, a conduit between two lineages represented by the shields on either side of the body. Maybe a scholarship particularly on English material has suggested this fallout of formula. Within this formula, the right shield featured the arms of a woman's natal kin, awarding primacy to her natal lineage. The left shield then featured the arms of her marital kin. When I applied this supposed formula to Scottish women's seals featuring the female figure, it began to break down quite quickly. The shield, Mary de Montemer, Countess of Fife, for instance, shown here, shows a reverse of the pattern promoted by historians of Chivalric display. Her seal is particularly useful in disputing this proposed formula, as she was the Countess of Fife, the premier Earl of Scotland, but also a member of the English nobility, and a descendant of the King of England. I suspect this proposed formula to appear in her seal, as it has been argued to bear out in English women's material culture. Rather than a passive link between Scottish and English lineages, we see her as the literal embodiment of her royal lineage dressed in robes here bearing the arms of England, three lions passant. The left shield features the arms of Fife, awarding primacy to her marital kin, and the left shield bears the arms of Montemer, uneagle displayed. She was not a female heir, the only criteria that past scholarship is cited as exceptions to British Segalographic formulae for women. The example of the Countess of Fife seal suggests that these proposed patterns ought to be thoroughly tested. I used the formula against seals from my data set featuring the female figure. So this was a total of 22 seals. I found that when they were analyzed 13 featured the marital arms in the dexter or right position, and nine featured arms in the sinister or left position. With regard to female heirs, the designs were evenly split with five featuring the marital arms in the dexter position, and five featuring them in the sinister position. What emerges from this analysis is that there are no clear or formulaic patterns in the arrangement of coats of arms in women's seals in Scotland. This suggests that the seal designs of women were curated to suit their individual circumstances and relationships to noble lineage. These findings align with the arguments Elizabeth A new and Philip R. Schofield have made, which have asserted individual choice as a key element in British ceiling practice. I will now trace the evolution of seal design and the proliferation of marshaling arms during the latter half of the 13th of the 14th century, excuse me, which moves us beyond what Betos Rezac termed semantics of the female image. Bruce McAndrews work on Scottish heraldry has shown that marshaling of arms in Scotland occurred in the 14th century. I would like to trace here the female contribution to the emergence of this practice. Marshaling is a practice of displaying more than one coat of arms on a shield in order to accommodate more than one lineage lineage and or associated estates and titles. Early marshaling can be seen in impaled arms, which showed two lineages on a single shield. William Ray McDonald observed in his 1904 seal catalog that the design of Isabella Randolph, which featured a shield bearing impaled arms and attached to a charter dated to 1351 or 1352 was the earliest earliest instance of impaled arms being used in Scotland. The fact that the earliest example of impaled arms can be traced to a woman suggests that women were influencing innovations that accommodated their relationships to multiple kinship groups. This can be attested by the number of marshaled shields featured in the seal designs belonging to women in the present study. 32% of the seal design feet 32% of the seal designs in the study feature marshaled arms, most often per pallet to represent natal and marital lineages. We could maybe think of the impaling of arms, creating a visual shorthand for the bridge that the female figure what once represented in seal design. Let's turn to the evolution of marshaling arms that culminated in quartered shields, like the ones we saw in like the one we saw in the seal of Mary Stuart Countess of Angus dating from 1459. Earlier our memorial seals kept the shield shields representing women's lineages and territorial claims separate. I have several examples here. I've got the seal of Eleanor Unforbill Countess of Angus, which dates to the early 14th century. The seal design shows four shields meeting conjoined at their bases in the center of the seal. Each shield represents her lineage acquired by noble birth and marriage and expresses her personal identity as a representative of these lineages. We can further compare this design with other seal casts from the 14th century, including the seals shown here, belonging to Mary Debregan Margaret Fraser and Mary Ramsey. The seal design of Agnes Randolph Countess of March can be read similarly to these seals and how they articulate her individual identity as a Scottish noble. Again, we see four shields arranged crosswise, coming to a point at the center of the seal. Top clockwise, we see a lion rampant within a double Tresora, the Royal Arms of Scotland, three cushions within a double Tresora, the Arms of Murray, and two shields featuring a lion rampant in a border charge with eight roses, which represented the arms of Dunbar and March. Interestingly, she treats Dunbar and March as distinct lineages when they were one in the same in terms of associative properties and title. The arrangement of these arms expressed her personal claims to power and authority as a Scottish elite. While the claims of Murray are perhaps exaggerated, as she asserts herself as Countess of Murray in the Charter and the legend of her seal. She did not have possession of this earldom. It still can communicated her connection to Murray by birth as daughter of the Earl and member of the Randolph family. The line of her seal articulates her relationship to each lineage with the conjoined shields at their bases at the center, creating a visual focal point alluding to Agnes as this focal point between them. Further to this, the arms represented in the seal corresponded to the title she claimed in the Charter to which the seal is attached. The arms that are Agnes Randolph seal and the others discussed as a precursor to later practice of quartering arms. We can compare the seal to the seal of Janet Dunbar Countess of Murray, Lady of Fendroff and Crichton, which was in use in the 1450s. I have that here on the right. The arms are quartered and express her ties to each lineage designated in her Charter. This is the name of the seal of Janet Dunbar, Murray, Fendroff and Crichton. When considered together the seal designs of Agnes Randolph and Janet Dunbar demonstrate the evolution and heraldic convention taking place in late medieval Scotland and how women made use of and potentially influenced these emerging emerging practices as they sought to represent their personal claims to multiple elite lineages acquired during the female life course. I was mentioning here that elite Scottish women did not mention their life course stage and their seal legends in that they don't list whether they're a daughter wife or widow. They only list their titles. I would argue that this is because this is parsed efficiently enough by the inclusion of heraldic device, which would have been understood by their contemporaries and tied into the titles and relationships elaborated on in the text of the Charter. The three of matrix gives us a unique glimpse of the making process and identity construction in late medieval Scottish stealing practice. The matrix found during the 1974 to 78 excavation of three of castle, a 14th century tower house belonging to the black family, possibly depicts a design for Margaret Stewart Duchess of terrain, Countess of Douglas, Lady of Galloway and Annandale, who operated out of the three during the 1420s as wife and then widow of the Earl of Douglas. There is a debate around what arms are represented in the Sir to position, compared to the eventual seal design of the Duchess pictured here. The later seal featured an impaled shield, but the right side of the shield quartered from right to left it bears the four titles associated with the estate holdings of the black Douglas family. Three floor to leave reflecting the newly acquired Duchess of terrain, a heart in chief three stars the arms of Douglas assault or in chief the arms of Annandale, and a lion rampant crowned the arms of Galloway. After the shield, we see her royal lineage as Princess of Scotland represented with a lion rampant within a double Tresora. This differs from the arms represented in the three of matrix, and I would like to particularly focus on the representation of the floor of terrain. In their 1981 article discussing the three finds GL good and CG Tabor ham, dated the matrix to around 1406, and suggested that the Sir to arms represented three mullets or stars, communicating the Murray of both well arms which was the natal family of the Duchess's mother in law Joanna Murray Countess of Douglas and Lady of both well. While the acquisition of territories associated with the Murray of both well family was important to the Duchess's father in law, through his man marriage to Joanna Murray Bruce McAndrews research has shown that the Murray of both well arms did not feature in subsequent seals of Douglas including the Duchess's husband, the fourth Earl Archbold. This cast out on good and Tabor ham's argument that the arms are represented here in the matrix. Given the size and condition of the three of matrix, there is still room for interpretation about what the arms are actually depicting in the Sir to shield. I would propose that the matrix states instead from 1424 or later, and the arms represented in the Sir to shield are actually three floor to Lee, which would represent the Duchy of terrain. Visually, I think the device resembles the floor to Lee, more than three stars seen on the previous slide. While it's difficult to read in its present condition, it is relatively easy to see that the device lacks the five pointed star that feature in the Murray of both well arms. Further to this, the Duchess does not mention both well in her charters or in the seal legend of her eventual seal. The Duchess of terrain was a significant acquisition for the Douglas family in 1424, when the Duchess's husband was granted the Duchy for his service to the king of France in the hundred years war. Katie Stevenson has drawn attention to the importance and significance of the acquisition of terrain, particularly in Scotland, as no other foreign noble had received a doacle rank from a late medieval French king. The fact that Margaret Stewart made you made use of the doacle title in her charters and eventual seal, I would suggest the matrix may be a prototype and part of the design process as the Duchess adapted the terrain heraldry into her seal design. The three matrix gives us further insight into the construction of identity through seals and the ways in which women participated in this process to express their personal ties to the prestige and privileges afforded by noble lineage. At the start of this paper I posed to research questions that would guide my discussion. First, how do women seal show the evolution and heraldic convention and sealing practice in 14th and 15th century Scotland. In regard to sealing practice, there was a shift in the 14th century and preferred seal shape from Ovoid to round. We might link this shift in shape to evolution of heraldic convention as the symbology of heraldry offered a concise way to express complex relationships to multiple elite lineages with the emergence of heraldry's arms in Scotland in the mid 14th century. These findings also corroborate Helen Geek's argument made last week here that shape of seal ought not to be considered a marker of femininity as it has been in past scholarship. The question I posed was whether or not women's use of heraldry in their seals was formulaic. I have hopefully demonstrated that this was not the case, at least in late medieval Scotland, and that the arrangement of the arms within a seal design communicated with heraldry's personal claims to elite lineage and associated privileges and resources. As such, the heraldry deployed in seals offers us a rich vein of further research into the ontological meaning of women's seals beyond what Beto's termed the semantics of the female image. Far from formulaic, women's use of heraldry in their seals communicated the accumulated links to lineage that was unique to the female life course and further influence sealing practice in late medieval Scotland. Thank you. Thank you very much, Rachel. That was excellent survey of the whole subject and thank you very much for it. Now, it's 1434, we've got a few minutes for questions. Beautifully timed, thank you. One from, oh, can I start by asking what the material of the three matrix is? It's lead. It's lead? Yes. Oh, right, right, yes. Thank you, thank you very much. That's very, very interesting. Also, it's also quite small. It's quite small. And the, I didn't have time to talk about it here, but the legend is also very succinct, it just says Sig Margaret Douglas, and that's it. Without her titles. Without her titles, which it also makes me think it was a prototype, figuring out how to incorporate the new title into her, into her seal design, rather than actually in use. And presumably the seal was lost in her castle or in the grounds of her castle. Yeah, she owned it. It looks as if it might have been a trial piece, you know, a later thing. Yes. It's very interesting. Anyway, I mustn't hold questions. Alex Maxwell Finvater has said the seal of Isabella counters of five does not seem to have a Stuart Fess. The first one. Yeah, the very first one right at the beginning. That seems to be a statement rather than a question anyway. Yeah. Okay. Right. Elizabeth you and says, are there any differences between the use of heraldry between women of Scottish and English birth. Is there a difference in the use of heraldry if you were born of an aristocratic family in England and married into a Scotch. Right. I think that's an excellent question. It's one of not. I'm not probably thought about as fully as I could, mostly because the seals that I look at kind of as we go forward in time, tend to be belonging to Scottish women that are born in Scotland. As well. So I think that's a really interesting question to think about for the earlier seals, belonging to Eleanor of Humphreville and Mary de Montemer and how maybe their, their English, their Englishness, as well as their, their kind of Scottish marriage might be influencing design there. Right. Then that's good. Yes. Then there's a comment really from Katie Hawks about formulas and formulaic. A long question I won't read out but seems to say say the formula or frameworks the individuals play with formula and themselves established new new formulae at the same time. Yes, really sort of expanding on your interpretation of the individuality of decisions being made. I think, I think the most important thing to take away from the evidence is that there's, there's a lot of choice involved in how to represent themselves in seal design, and that kind of trying to break it down into kind of easy to understand patterns doesn't really work because each person's individual circumstances are going to influence the way in which they're representing themselves in their seals. Okay, right. There are one or two other detailed heraldic comments that you and the others can note and perhaps I think really respond to perhaps in individually or again.