 introduced Malcolm Jones. I first met Malcolm when he worked at the BM in the 1980s and so like Rinal, he's a 40 year old friend. For Malcolm I kept all his letters and articles in a special ring binder and I have a special fan for all his emails. And I'm a great fan of this book, The Secret Middle Ages. He's a great talker, an incredible expert on words and seals. So over to you Malcolm. I hope I can find this. Well thank you John, I hope everyone can hear me. Can you hear me? Thank you John. I'm blushing and I'm glad you can't see me here but thanks. I'm going to look at all sorts of aspects of personal seals from a sort of popular culture point of view and I'm going to show lots of pictures and I console myself with the thought that anyone who thinks that pictures have not been on the screen long enough can always catch up perhaps on YouTube later. I'll start straight away with a picture that I showed, I hope. Why isn't it working? I wanted to get this in because it's one of my favourites, greet well, give our cat. And it reminds me that seals are also a value for onomastics, not just place names, personal names of course, usually of people but occasionally as here of pets. It turns out that Gibb, which is itself a pet form, a nickname of the first name Gilbert, and that's why it's appropriate to Gilbert Stone on a document sealed by him in the 1390s. That's why when it came to translating the French name of the cat Tubert in the roman de la rose, the English translator naturally used this very same expression, greet well, give our cat. But I want to start by thinking about the physicality of seals, how they were actually carried about, were they worn for example like a pendant on a necklace, were they kept in a purse at the girdle, so that physically the things were perhaps amulets that could be carried around as well as having the function of sealing letters, but also to look at some of the ambiguous inscriptions. I start with something that isn't a seal at all, this lovely silver ring brooch in the V&A. The legend is in English and the bottom of the page is from the Middle English Dictionary, which is freely available online. All the various spellings that are available for the first person pronoun, the I pronoun in Middle English. You'll see that the head form chosen by the dictionary is isch, just as in modern German, but there are a host of other spellings including hitch, which we should be coming to later, and this one here IHC. My argument is that this is a deliberate choice of spelling because it's the same as the abbreviation for the savior, the sacred monogram, which we're used to seeing on all sorts of artifacts, including seals as here, top left and bottom left, and various a ring, top right, strap ends, all that sort of thing. Bottom left, just as this is an actual seal, you'll see the monogram below something which looks rather like an eyebrow, but it's in fact, as Elizabeth New pointed out almost 20 years ago now in 2002, a manuscript abbreviation symbol. So here we have the whole message, Jesus is my love, and quite a common seal type on the PAS database. So this apparently frivolous subject, very common subject of the hare riding the hound and blowing a hunting horn as here, usually accompanied by the legend Soho Robin, Soho being the hunting cry and Robin, the name of the dog. Here the legend is Ich am Honte Gold, literally I am a good hunter, but again you'll notice the form of the personal pronoun that's been chosen is spelled IHC just as in the sacred monogram. On the other side, the inscription actually ends with God, putting the adjective after the noun because it's not normal English word or though so I'm assuming this is a deliberate post positioning and God and Christ separated by the cross in the middle. I'm suggesting that there may well be that this may well be deliberate. Here I think we do have again a very deliberate placing of the legend. It's divided into three. It starts at seven o'clock with Yezu and then we have these apparently meaningless two other words, selbo and nele. When we do the segment properly, it is of course in Anglo-French, Je su sel bon et l'eau. I am a seal good and faithful. Now again, I think there's a trinitarian thing going on here. We've got a triangular figure. We have a flowering heart in the center of the design from which three petaled flowers project. So I think we have a trinitarian theme and it's no accident is my argument that the name Yezu or Je su has been singled out. I've just left a note there to myself to point out that the language of many of these seals is a kind of French, the kind of French spoken in England in the late Middle Ages, which we call Anglo-French or Anglo-Norman, not the same as continental French. It has one or two distinguishing features, especially orthographically, and I particularly want to focus on the spelling of qui and que with an initial K rather than the QU or QV as it would appear in inscriptions. I also want to point out that many of these legends are metrical and they rhyme. They have a very simple rhyming couplets, Je su sell bon et l'un. Another whole host of seals matrices from the PAS database, all beginning Je su sell, because these objects call a seal of faithful love on the left or I am a seal, I can't see the top there, never mind. But four of these certainly, I would argue, have Christological significance. The Agnes Day top centre, obviously a symbol for Christ. The Pelican in her piety as the motif is known, bottom right, another well-done symbol for Christ's sacrifice. On the left, although this is clearly an amatory seal, a more appropriate to human lovers, with the turtle, the biling and the cuing, we still have however the sacred monogram initials, IH below, the sort of perch thereon and C above the beaks. The final matrix, a stag clearly with antlers, but a detail that might be missed if we didn't know, we weren't aware of its possibility, is the cross between the antlers. This is actually a reference to a vision of St Eustis, but also St Hubert, they both had the same vision of the crucifix with the crucified Christ appearing on it between the antlers of the stag. Quite a common type on the left here, just the stag's head with the cross between the antlers and here the legend Je su merci, which I have seen translated Jesus thanks, but it is of course here, merci, not thanks, and although fairly rare in English iconography, a vision of St Eustis from a manuscript now in Venice on the right. While we're on sort of popular region, I wanted to show this. After St Edmund was martyred by the Vikings in 870, his head was missing and according to legend, it was eventually found by a wolf, so here in the center of the seal is the wolf, finally St Edmund's head and the head itself is speaking the legend saying, here, here, here, here, I am. There's that a different spelling of the personal pronoun there, which I suspect is perhaps for the sake of the alliteration, and of course this was found about 10 miles due east of Berry St Edmund's in Suffolk. Reinal just showed us this very same seal. I don't know what you think Reinal, but on the right hand side is an impression of what I think may even be this very seal in the National Archives. As you said, there's some doubt as to whether or not it was actually found in Ireland, I think it's part of the Roche-Smith collection, but what I'd like to focus on really is the fact that the seal itself, which reuses this antique sard, may well itself be physically considered an amulet, a talisman, maybe that's I'm not sure if that's a suspension loop at the top or not, but as I say one could carry it in one's purse or if it is a suspension loop perhaps on a necklace around the neck, but also I want to consider the significance of this word port, because obviously it can mean to carry, but it can also mean to wear. Lots of things in Anglo-Normal inscriptions from small items from the late Middle Ages just talk about being carried or worn. This lovely ring which I think has disappeared but was shown in the 18th, in the early 19th century. So there it is, who wears me will be successful and return in great joy. So clearly a ring is warm rather than carried. This I have to show this lovely thing, it's a tiny lead badge. Now it's ended up in Prague in the Museum of Decorative Arts, but it's inscribed with the legend Bian Aya Kimapot. May he have wealth who wears me or who carries me, wears I think. But I'm just impressed by the sheer execution of the thing, the detail on an item which is only about three centimetres wide, the rib cage of the greyhound, the decorated collar and whether or not it's anything to do with the cult of the canonised greyhound Saint Deguinae fort, which is an extraordinary story in its own right, I'm not going to go into now. A selection of objects, all of which are avowedly talismanic. They all say we will bring good luck to those who wear us or carry us. A couple of pilgrim signs, bottom left, the badge we've just seen on bottom right, a ring brooch, top left, and a finger ring from the portable antiquity scheme, top right. And here again I just want to point out the spelling, what I regard as a diagnostic Anglo-French spelling using the KK rather than the QV for the relative pronoun. So I couldn't resist also showing this because you'll have to take my word for it, I'm afraid that it does actually begin with quima portara on one of the other examples, one in the Museum of London, another in Regensburg, something of an outlier. It's a lead mirror case and it shows climactic episodes in the Tristram and his old legend. We have Tristram himself is old and her may, Tristram's dog at the bottom and King Mark arriving on a horse on the right. This was found in Perth exactly a century ago during the excavation of a well. Whoever carries me will not lack for joy, I am well loved. So we have to imagine this being carried around perhaps in a purse and a fine example to my mind of the trickle down of the iconography of courtly love into a rather small humble medium. We still regard the four leaf clover today as lucky. The six seals on the left one an impression in the National Academy National Archives sorry all are to my mind four leaf clovers. As early as 1510, Winkendo word published in London, a volume called the Gospels of Distaves in fact a translation of a late 15th century French work is Évangel de Canouille but it's full of fascinating information about superstition. He that findeth the trifle with four leaves and keep it in reverence know for also true as the gospel that he shall be rich all his life. So there's a late 15th century early 16th century attestation of this of the good luck of finding a four leaf clover. The majority of matrices that bear this device actually bear the legend of the one off from the left. You have a faithful lover. So there's a sort of amateur implication perhaps the commonest of all seal legends is the one born by the seal top left Privesu I am private. The one top right again it seems to me bearing this ambiguity that I was just talking about earlier that the word Jesus is actually significantly spaced on the perimeter legend from the rest as if Jesus is available by itself. Bottom right two little led badges in the form of I would argue a four leaf clover one on the right with the initial T in the center probably for Thomas Thomas Beckett Archbishop Canterbury. These are found at Canterbury as well. So some of the associations of the four leaf clover as a luck bringer and as I say if you carried your personal seal around with you then maybe you have this sort of lucky charm with you all the time. I couldn't resist showing this image because it's just so extraordinary. The head of God the father in this early 14th century English solter replaced with a four leaf clover or possibly a true love. Again another of DeWard's publications the four leaves of the true love is said to symbolize the three persons of the Trinity plus the Virgin and true love is a contemporary late medieval name for a four leafed plant not unlike the clover and there's the Latin name for it and at the bottom of this page a shameless plug for my medieval book but John has already done that for me so thank you for that John. Moving on to horseshoes of course or another lucky find at the very bottom of this page I've quoted again from the Gospel of Distails. He that findeth a horseshoe or a piece of one and make that I want to come back to a piece of one he that findeth a horseshoe or a piece of one he shall have good fortune and this is 1510 then but we can be sure this isn't simply a French or Flemish superstition it is current in Britain as well because G.R. Oust quotes in the in the quotation just above in a long discourse on types of idolatry by a late 14th century English preacher horseshoes and iron nails are are reckoned as lucky finds. This particular impression is attached to a document in the public record office which mentions a certain Walter of Purton who was a blacksmith so clearly as the legend is in the name of Saint Elois Elegius and he is the patron saint of blacksmiths and farriers clearly appropriate to Walter of Purton. Chaucer's Prioress in the general prologue the only the mildest oath she allows herself is by Saint Loy. He greatest oath was but be Saint Elois and French she's back after the skull of Stratford at a bow for French of Paris was to hear and know so this is often regarded as a sort of sources of snide comment as to the Prioress is French but I think he's making us aware that he is aware that the kind of French spoken in London is not the same as the kind of French spoken in Paris so here we have a contemporary witness to the currency of Anglo-Norman in 14th century London. So horseshoes lucky finds notice that this one is is upside down heels downwards. A couple more horseshoe seals believed or not people were actually 14th century examples at the top of the page there. Those by the way come from the very final item in the Middle English dictionary under horseshoe and the very final item in all their entries is a very very very useful collection of the use of the wording question in place names and personal names as here. So we have a Gerard horseshoe on the left and the a marshal in this sense a farrier or screwing smith on the right. Notice the Gerard's horseshoe is positioned with the heels upward and piercings with the heels downwards. We still say I think in modern Britain well if you're putting a lucky horseshoe up you put it with the heels upwards otherwise as people say the luck will fall out. So I was interested to see well did this superstition still what was this the fact in the middle ages so here's a couple more. We have a lead badge, Dutch lead badge on the on the left there with a crown on top so clearly to be oriented in that direction. Now the English pottery jug in the BM below again the horseshoe put with heels pointing downwards and then on the right wonderful drawing by the Swiss artist Urs Graf you can see his monogram at the base of the shrine there and the date just above it 1516 which seems to be hedging its bets here we have a one horseshoe heels upwards one horseshoe heels downwards and there on the right is a piece of one. So even a piece of a horseshoe as we know from winking the words cost is worth preserving and putting up. Folklore and folklife we're already in that in that area I think. Here is a well known that deserves to be better known image of the man in the moon on a document in the public record office dated 1335 a a nice latin text very learned in production this and you can see the man in the moon who was banished there by the way according to many you will believe for collecting firewood on the Sabbath so he has a bunch of thorns which he would have used for kindling his fire on a stick over his shoulder there's his little dog as well and it's very reminiscent of the of the passage in Midsummer Night's Dream where the the the the mechanicals are doing their play and they say this man with lantern dog and bush of thorn presented moonshine they spell it out for us just as already we see here on the seal in the 14th century a couple of matrices of a very simple design a single mastered ship and on the left I could make nothing of that legend when I transcribed it like that it didn't seem to mean anything to me on the right a rather more sophisticated production perhaps quite an elegant piece of engraving so I think we can be sort of hopeful that Rumielov was meaningful at the time and once I pronounced it Rumbolo to myself I thought Rumbolo heave ho Rumbolo which is a sea shanty and to my delight on the database and this is the value of a database one can simply say send me all these seal matrices that have ships on them on to my delight I found a Hartfordshire matrix with heave oh Rumbolo on it the whole the whole phrase the whole sea shanty phrase heave ho Rumbolo and just in case you think I'm making all this up here from the middle English dictionary are some verses using the same phrase and one I've added myself from Wilson's lost literature hail and ho Rumbolo steer well the good ship and let the wind blow so we know this is the contemporary sea shanty that appears on these matrices a time for a little look at some aspects of the world turned upside down I'm always complaining that Bruegel's Proverbs picture is not medieval though it's often used to illustrate studies of medieval Proverbs but there is his sign of the world turned upside down which sort of tells us how to read that painting as a whole I'm not aware of this particular motif in something of 15th century date but nearest I can find is on the right here detail on the woodcut from the early 16th century Paris with the image of the orb inverted and it says at the bottom there Elas Monde retourner trois à l'aventure so I'm dealing with the world turned upside down on the seals and specifically with the hair the animal the hair as a principal actor in the Monde renverser this will be familiar I'm sure to almost everybody Bosch's extraordinary triptych usually goes by the title in English of the Garden of Earthly Delights I want to look at one detail in the hell panel on the right at the bottom and it's this one where we see a hare with a hunting horn and a stick or spear over his shoulder a human being dangling in front of him and two dogs ahead of him who have already caught another another another victim and also a quick note of the hare's purse there you see a nice very nice late medieval purse the purse bar and the bag already by Bosch's time if we say circa 1500 for that painting this is is a venerable motif we have 13th 14th and earlier 15th century examples here the famous roman d'Alexandre manuscript in the Bodleian on the left there particularly well known I think one of one of the one of the hares has trapped a man up a tree there you see the other one is gleefully treading about to to strengthen to to span his crossbow and you notice the detail there he's the little paw is in the stirrup of the crossbow and he's straining to pull it up wonderful stuff and sure enough on the database we have the same image the finder of this was kind enough to send it to me in a matchbox so I had a great fun trying to puzzle away at the legend and this is this is as far as I've got with it so far not entirely convincing but I hope you'll agree it is at least the same motif the two dogs on leashes the little man dangling behind his shoulder and we must never forget that these things are tiny there's this is this is 19 millimeters wide this whole canvas I've reversed it bottom right there just to show how very similar it is to another find which unfortunately the legend is no clearer but it's not and it's not the same so it doesn't really get us any further this is the classic image of the hare on the dog blowing the hunting horn off to off to hunt humans presumably in the wood je vois abois another hare with a bow an ordinary bow this time and I just use this to illustrate how these things how these legends can mislead I made the basic mistake here the beginner's mistake of trying to read this inscription with the image oriented like like that I should of course have looked for the cross or star that shows you where the legend begins and this you'll see I've turned it around a little on the right there at which point after a while I realize the legend read like that where my bow beware my bow so it's it's just a sort of humorous legend here another hare with another bow and this time we have a squirrel in a tree I don't hope you can see that this is an impression from the from the database and a puzzle of the way at this legend for some time I think I think it says woe me what stroyer stroyer as used by Chaucer means killer woe me is just woe me and what is one of the many names for the hare so I think this is a killer hare again a hare on the rampage with his bow this is the classic image of the hare on the dog with the hunting horn yet again this time the label seems to be alone I ride a river I spent some time looking for rivers initially and then I realized there weren't any rivers and it couldn't possibly be river so my latest conclusion is that I think it has to be some version of our ver that this is in the modern sense this is that's what the the river it means again the same image but this time the one on the left in particular is holding a bird perhaps a a hawk of some kind and the legend is slightly different alone I ride have I no swaying meaning no squire I suppose occasionally we have descriptions in for example the putsy-deeds here the auction record society volume of the seals attached to documents even if we can't access the seals themselves and here you'll notice and you'll understand why I think that the the author has mistakenly described the seal as a woman riding a dog hawk on wrist long streamers behind her head well of course the long streamers are in fact the the hares ears but of course unless you're familiar with the with this sort of grotesquery how could you be expected to know that uh a couple more hares the hunting cry so ho and this time the hair is addressed as scut another of the many proper names for the hair and again another datable record of the youth of it on a putsy-deeds circa 1312 here we're in a quite different world we still have the same hunting cry but the hair this time has the face and the mitre of a bishop so what's going on here so ho levek so ho bishop what what what a strange what a strange thing I I I can't immediately suggest what's happening here but maybe it's something to do with the the ribaldry the inversion of the the boy bishop ceremony which I very much think the the next seal I'm showing you is this turned out only quite recently led quite uprooted as you see um crudely designed and it purports to be the seal of Henry Archbishop of Orwell well Orwell is a small village in Cambridge here it's probably lucky if it has a priest and it certainly wouldn't have an archbishop so I think this is nothing less than uh a a spoof seal part of the regalia of the the boy bishop uh over that christmas that that there's sort of in that inversion ceremony um and and celebration uh east anglia of course being exactly the area in which the many boy bishop tokens have been found as well I think I better stop because I think I'm going on too long um thank thank thank you very much thank you very much Malcolm do you want to have a couple of sentences to round things up yes okay thanks thanks yes um um as you see I've been looking at humor on seals as well to a certain degree um this this one of the I was going to come on to to look at the the the ape on the the back of the ass holding an owl instead of a hawk um again I suspect a sort of subtle satire on the on the noble hunt of hawking um here is more or less than ape owl ass clearly a popular a popular motif uh as in this lovely matrix from the Isle of Wight on the left there not just in seals but also there's a Durham example where it's dated but also in manuscript here is a an early 14th century manuscript now in new york where the same scene is actually labeled in english where the text of the manuscript is in latin here and is no less than an ape and an owl and an ass and wonderful preacher early 14th century preacher robert of baseball in the middle of his latin sermon on human vanity actually breaks off to illustrate our this very this very seal I think that we've been looking at this very type uh suddenly goes into english neither more nor less than ape and owl and ass so I'm just going to stop there and say that uh there are lots of popular cultural uh insights to regain from things I'll stop there right well thank you thank you very much that was a marvelous uh round up of uh proverbs of wisdom um readings and humor um excellent um do you think melcom that the presence of these um uh things particularly the mottos the man in the moon around around 1300 really tells us something about how literate and what appreciation people had um who use these seals well I think I do john yes I mean I think I think I think the implications for literacy are very important I think um and but and even even if even if you weren't yourself literate I think you could still enjoy the joke or have it explained to you so yes so so we could possibly trace the whole level of literacy across the country by the use of of of these seals interesting idea yes anyway thanks thank you very much