 The title really should be Seals of the People of medieval Britain and Ireland, and as organisers, I am particularly pleased to be moving away from an Anglo-centric paradigm with papers focusing on Scotland and Ireland, and there will be honourable mentions of Wales during various papers. This conference is also designed to place Seals firmly back with the people who used them. Seals are attractive and materially interesting, but considering them as object art or curios, divorces from them from their societal and cultural context renders them, but less interesting and important than they really are. Another key intention is to draw the discussion down the social scale, since the study of Seals has generally focused on aristocracy, institutions and officials, even though the great majority of British Seals relate to non-nobal men and women. The conference is also designed to encourage as wide a range of participants as possible to engage with the material and to incorporate Seals into their own investigations of the past, whatever form that takes. At the start, I'm just going to run through some technical terms and salient points to be absolutely clear, especially if anyone hasn't had the chance to read the accompanying information for the conference. First of all, the word seal can refer to a matrix, to an impression made by a matrix, and to casts from impressions and modern impressions of old matrices. We don't know how many medieval seals survive because only a small proportion have been recorded, but there are probably somewhere around a million wax impressions attached to or associated with documents in Britain, with tens of thousands of matrices and casts. And the daunting scale is, I think, one of the reasons that Seals have been rather neglected, and is one of the greatest challenges, as well as one of the greatest opportunities facing us today. There are various terms used for the study of Seals, but most common in relation to medieval Seals is sygillography from the Latin sygillum. The conference was originally planned last year, but the open format has the advantage of enabling us to welcome far more participants, particularly at the site for a conference about Seals which are whatever else they function attributes about communication. It's also appropriate to hold a Seals conference in conjunction with the Antiquaries, since as Paul Drury has said, interest in the subject has run through the society from its earliest days. A publication entitled Ancient Monuments was launched in 1718 and included quite a lot of sygillographic material, first of which was published in 1720. And this is now being put online and includes some of the seal drawings and descriptions. That's a link to it, if you'd follow up. The proceedings of the Antiquaries and the Antiquaries Journal continue to provide a home for notes and articles about Seals. Many pioneers of British sygillography were fellows of the society. One of the earliest British seal projects was Sir Christopher Hatton's Book of Seals, compiled in the mid 17th century and recording medieval seal documents brought together for the purpose in the Library of the First Baron Hatton, hence its name. But sample folios can be viewed through the Northamptonshire Record Office website and the 1950 published edition. In the 18th and 19th century, there was also great enthusiasm for collecting matrices and making casts. For example, Dr Richard Rawlinson's collection, highlighted by John Cherry's recent catalogue, which is now in the Ashmolean Museum. This long tradition of collecting and recording seals is important for modern scholars, not least for items that subsequently have been damaged, destroyed or lost. We should however exercise caution about drawings of seals from all periods, because they are always an interpretation. And they're also two-dimensional records, however skillful of three-dimensional objects, and that's a point I'm going to refer to. During the late and 19th century, the pace and formality of the recording of seals increased, led by figures such as Walter de Grey Birch, William Breenwell and Charles Hunter Blair. Indeed, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were something of a golden age for British Segeography, with general surveys and works focusing on specific types of seal owner, motif or use, including a series of essays by Williamson Jim Hope, Gail Pedrick's volumes on borough monastic seals, and the pioneering work of Charles Kingsford. In period also witnessed the establishment of many historical and archaeological societies that regularly featured seals in their journals. Very few of the key figures in this golden age were university-based, however. And most approach the subject with what we will probably now call a multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary approach. In light of this, I would tentatively suggest that the so-called professionalization of history that happened in the late 19th century, with the emergence of separate academic disciplines, is actually unhelpful for the study of seals, because it fostered a somewhat narrower discipline-specific approach to historical evidence. And although it had a very positive repercussion for the preservation of material, the formalization of the archival museum and conservation professions often led to the division of collections between impressions, casts and matrices. And I would suggest that that might have been helpful for how seals were studied in the mid-parts of the 20th century. Certainly, the late 1930s to the late 1970s were a fallow period from British medieval sigilography. There were some exceptions, most notably the work of T. F. Tout, Sahilore Jenkinson, and Pierre Chaplet. But in general, seals dropped off the radar for most academic history and featured only intermittently for art history and archaeology. The situation began to change in the late 1970s and 1980s. The inclusion of seals into rock, buster, medieval exhibitions at the VNA, returning points and raising their profile, I would suggest. And several publications were also important, including in 1979, the first edition of Michael Clanch's Seminal from Memory to Written Record, which placed seals back in the mainstream of historical discourse. And in 1980s also published seals in medieval England by scholars who've become leading lights in the field. And I know that some of them are here with us today. John Cherry, Paul Harvey, Sandy Heslop and Julian Gardner, along with some Anglo-centric work by Brigitte Medos-Rizak. And at roughly the same time, David H. Williams and Michael Powell Siddons embarked on their series of catalogues and articles about Welsh seals. I'm going to leave a discussion of the situation in Scotland to our colleagues next week. Well, we'll hear a lot more about that. During the 1990s, Paul Harvey also cataloged seals in the Duchy of Lancaster Collection in what was then the Public Record Office. Paul Harvey took advantage of the digital revolution underway at the time by working with an IT specialist to build a database able to accommodate the many different elements necessary for seals, especially those attached to documents, and to utilise cutting edge digital photography so an image could accompany each catalog entry. And in 1999, I was fortunate enough to be employed as the technical assistant on this final stage of digital photography. The Duchy of Lancaster seals catalog made a brief in the National Archives website, however, before the current discovery system necessitated rethink. Material is now accessible again, but I think this is a salutary reminder that the records of seals often need to fit within content management systems that are not necessarily designed easily to accommodate them. And again, I think this is something that might come up in other papers and more general discussion. The late 1990s, I did beg your pardon, I've got my, I missed a slide. The, in terms of publications, that's just a nice reminder Paul Harvey and Andrew McGinnis's guide to British medieval seals still stands today as the best introduction to the subject. But he's also witnessed the piloting of what became the portable antiquities scale scheme, although I'm going to leave colleagues to expand on this. Suffice to say, in 1996 a scheme for the voluntary recording of material found outside formal logical digs was launched, proved great success, and led to the current PIS. A very brief fleet to the rest of Europe, the picture is mixed. The 20th century saw activity in some places and neglect in others. France fared particularly well assisted by the National Archives section on seals and when I'm anger sizing these names partly because my French pronunciation is is not good. It's the French heraldry and schedule a graphic society. The importance of seals was also recognized by the International Council on archives and a committee on schedule a few's established in 1958, leading to initiatives such as the 1990 publication of an international vocabulary of schedule a few. It's currently being digitized and I think this is giving the potential for perhaps updating and revising some of the contents, although it stands as an absolute excellent reference work. However, in 2012 ICA International Council of Archives restructuring, led to the abolition of a dedicated seal section. This change was the driving force behind the establishment of sutulent, which is a network and a forum for discussion and communication that's open to anyone to join. And again, there's the website if you're not familiar with this. Returning to Britain, important features of sort of geographic research in the late 20th and early 21st century were foregrounding of both impressions and matrices, as well as continued use of casts and return to transdisciplinary or multi disciplinary approach. Seals also continue to be brought public attention. The series of conferences and exhibitions at the British Museum, starting in 1992 with 7000 years of seals, a reminder that seals are actually as old as recorded history indeed provide some of our very earliest evidence of history written written evidence. Another exhibition in 2007 focused on medieval seals was accompanied by a conference. And the 2015 conference seals and status was used to highlight the British Museum's digitization program. During these years, the study of seals flourished more generally. In 2009 seals and medieval Wales became the first large scale funded research project in the UK and approached the geographic material as an underexploited means to an end. That is to contribute to a fuller picture of medieval Wales and the English borderlands, rather than as an end in itself. The methodological and technical aspects of timing new for gravity are also significant, rather than focus on particular types of motif, user or collection. Sign your covered range of collections and wherever possible, recorded everything that fell within the geographical and temporal parameters within that collection. So with his blessing and advice, adapted Paul Harvey's recording template for our material, and particularly for rapidly changing digital landscape. The application stage had overestimated the available technical support. He relied on John McEwan's abilities to create a complex relational database and is at his instigation instituted keyword tagging of motifs to facilitate analysis which led to rather odd conversations such as what is the defining medieval visual ever essence of lion and if you're wondering it's that long tail with a fluffy tip. The first source of sign he was the 2012 exhibition hosted by the National Library of Wales, and associated form activities. It's nearly a decade since the end of the seals and medieval Wales project. Now, and the study and approach of an approach to seals and medieval Britain has developed. The first one I would suggest is a proactive approach to technology. From a little draftsman of 17th and 18th centuries to the rapid adoption of databases and digital imaging in the late 20th. Sigilographers have been alert to the potential of new technologies, increasingly sophisticated digital processing and analytics and high quality digital images have further facilitated studies. Several European projects, including Sigila and Sigiland Puch Gali, along with the UK imprint project which are term are examples of what can be achieved. Most recently, 3D imaging has been employed with great effect. These are three dimensional objects, of course, and this is opening new avenues for research and outreach. Active transformation imaging lends itself particularly well to seal impressions. John McEwen has pioneered this for British material and has some examples on his digital website. The standardisation of recording, which I've already mentioned, is of course essential for all cataloging, but perhaps particularly challenging when describing the visual in words. The template, adapted by the two HRC projects provides one model for British archival material, but isn't formally recognised outside those projects. A problem is that the international vocabulary, which forms the basis for Paul Harvey's standard, relegates swathes of motifs found on British seals to just a couple of references. That's why I think it's an opportunity perhaps to revise the international vocabulary. The development of keywords is actually very important for electronic searches and useful in facilitating recording and analysis by non specialists and to get around the complexities of culture specific iconography. Scientific studies and the materiality of seals are another feature of recent studies. There have been several scientific investigations and they're leading us in some exciting directions. Conservation science has been at the forefront with studies on the composition of sealing wax, for example. Forensic science is also influential. Many people notice fingerprints on wax seals. Sometimes they're deliberate and impressions of deliberate imprints in the back of the impressions of the Speya town seal in Germany have recently been investigated. Philippa Hoskin and I started discussing what appeared to be accidental prints on the back of many British medieval seals some time ago and in 2013 we led a pilot project with a forensic expert. Unexpected discoveries included the evidence that until around 1300 we're actually looking at palm rather than fingerprints. This led to the much larger HRC funded imprint project, which ran for three years starting in January 2016. We use cutting edge equipment and further collaboration with our forensic colleagues to analyze the results. We came up with a number of exciting and unexpected evidence and also allowed our forensic colleagues to test out new material and technologies. All the data produced by imprints freely available on the project website, so please take a look. We also worked with colleagues from Cognate Studies during the project, including some sampling of inorganic elements in sealing wax and working with the first stages of the archives project, which is analyzing pre-modern wax to look at the organic materials. And materiality in all its forms has led to a number of conferences and publications and seems to be very much in the forefront of research. But it's an engagement of increased studies, conference proceedings and collections, including a number that incorporate work on seals from beyond Western Europe and which put them alongside other evidence from the Middle Ages. Engagement is increasing as well. Seals are engaging. From school children to senior citizens, having a go at impressing a matrix into wax actually usually play though. Being challenged to design your own seal seems to capture the imagination. The PIS goes from strength to strength. So some conclusions. For me, the most encouraging current developments are a greater emphasis on non-noble seals and sealing practices. We'll work on the geographic landscape of the whole of Britain Island and more broadly across Europe. The thorough integration of seals into their social and cultural contexts, a mutually beneficial engagement with colleagues in the digital and scientific worlds. Seals are being integrated into a whole range of investigations about past societies in ways not seen before. And people who have not previously used the material are engaging with it. Various scientific studies demonstrate that they're not just historical evidence but contribute to current challenges. There are challenges ahead. There are constraints on the heritage and education sectors. It's complex and it takes time to understand them before they re-yield their full potential. But the positives far outweigh the negatives and it does feel as though the time has arrived for seals to take their place in the sun, although not direct sunlight of course. Above all, the fact that this conference focused principally on seals and sealing practices of non-noble men and women has attracted such broad interest, surely bodes well, setting the seal of approval on the dynamic nature of the field today. Thank you, Elizabeth. Now, I haven't yet seen any questions, but perhaps I could start perhaps with a comment. My area of interest in medieval studies is medieval floor tiles, like John Cherry of course. And the interesting or many interesting parallels, but of course medieval floor tiles, decorated ones, are made with a stamp, a die. The motifs included are often similar, and I was very much taken with the idea, how do you define a liar? Because that is a common problem across many fields where objects or architectural fragments have a particular beast. Certainly in the same field of tiles, there is a considerable problem in searching on names, because the names are not consistent. So I will now turn to a new source, the terms used in seal descriptions. Perhaps a place to start to check on a consistent vocabulary. And I suppose the wider point, as you say, seals are not unique in terms of the approach to manufacture, the medieval period, the production of impressions, but of course the motifs included. Anyway, I now have a question, or another comment. Lions and leopards and the difference between were a great matter of discussion in medieval heraldic literature from Katie Hawkes. Yes, absolutely. And we actually didn't come up with a separate category for leopards, partly because of this complication. Now, this whole point is about how do you describe something visual in words, but also how do you decide that what you're looking at is the same as somewhere else. We were actually quite surprised it wasn't a mane or a roaring, you know, that wide open roaring. It was actually that particular form of the tail. I see there are a couple more questions. Yeah, you can see them as well. I suppose Joe Hopley would like to join the signal and are the are the details in the program. Or if you go, there should be some information in the conference pack. And if you go to the website, there are details of how to join there. Right, thank you. Our archivists taking cataloging seals as important as recording the documents they're attaching. This is a very complex question. I think a lot of archivists would like to. But there are problems in terms that there's the the the international standard only requires very minimal detail about seals, and also this lack of standardization for what should be recorded and how. In my experience, archivists, most archivists would very much like to do more with seals, but the resources problem, as well as the challenges of standardized recording gets in the way, but I think there are moves to try and encourage more and find easier ways for archivists to court seals. Thank you. And another talking about materiality. I'm wondering whether you could share your thoughts on seal related objects, such as medieval seal bags, medieval objects related to seal storage. Are there any recent approaches. If, if the pandemic haven't hit, then I was involved in discussions with a couple of colleagues at a very early stage to look at seal bags and I know there are studies on seal bags. Canterbury Cathedral, for example, has done quite a lot of work at the archives there on seal bags, seal storage more generally, not a huge amount, but it's one of those many areas where there's a lot of material and a lot of exciting work to be done. So yes, I definitely encourage, encourage this. And, Stephen Freeth, could you please highlight your textbook on seals written for the PRA British Records Association. Copies are still available, if you tell. Yes. Yeah, among the advertisements it was published in 2010 and I'd like to update it. But it was designed as a general introduction for people doing archival work of seals. And now from Kate Hawkins. When to look at seals in a local archive, and the seals that were still attached were simply described in the catalogue as motif. But it did mean I got to look at every seal impression, but the lack of a consistent list of describing these motifs was surprising to a new cover to seals. Yes, and this is this is something I could have spent the whole 20 minutes talking about. It's for a number of reasons, the lack of standardized terminology, the fact they are quite difficult to to look at to to interpret and time and resources. I've been doing quite a lot of work with colleagues in archives to see if there are some ways around this if I have producing more consistent terminology and easier and quicker ways for them to be recorded. Well, thank you very much. I am now going