 Ieithaf. Rwy'n ffordd, nad yna'n gweithio'n meddwl gael gynnig iawn i'r gweithio yma, a'r gweithio'n meddwl gweithio ar y society i'r wlad. Rydw i wedi gweld ar y cyfle oeddwn ymddangosol, yn mynd i'r hyn o'r gwleidag sydd yn cyfle i'r gweithio'r society, ac yn y gweithio gweithio'r gweithio ar y society i'r gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'n gwneud y dyfodill, ac mae'n gweithio ar y cwyl wedi'i gweithio ar y cwyl. I will show you my normal day. It's actually quite comfortable. But it is for purpose other than it's for a Tudor dressing up, although my head of department doesn't believe me. I'm going to be talking quite generally about seals and sealing practises to provide a context. Then I'm going to hand over to Philip who is going to talk through the project and some case studies. ac rwy'n edrych yn dweud hynny i gael gweithio'r lluniau. A'r amser, yn gweithio'r lluniau i gael gweithio. Yn ystod, mae yw'r lluniau? Yn ystod, mae'r lluniau yn y dda i'r lluniau ymlaen i'r lluniau. Y lluniau yn ysgrifennu. Mae'r idea ar y cyfnodau i'r identifol. Mae'r lluniau yn y form ffordd o'r ffordd o'r cyfrifol, o unrhyw gwneud ymateid, o'r cymryd o'n gweld yn iechyd o'n gysylltu ffordd a'r hollolio ar y oeswyddonau i unrhyw gwneud ymateid i unrhyw gwneud. Felly, gwrth i nawr yw i mi ddarparu gwneud ymateid o gollol o'r gefnogiad. Rwy'n edrych yn fwy o'r eich tal o'n gwybod, ond rydym yn ymwyaf mwy o'r ideae yw'r gwneud ymwysigig. Ysbryd i chihowb dda'i rhai athgoredd bwy ymwysig, rwy'n ddweud ymwysig o'r Felly, rwy'n cael ei gwneud yr ystodau'r llefyn ar y cyllidio'r amser oherwydd mae'n rhanio'r meyddoedd. Mae'n cael ei gweithio'r cyllidio, ond mae'n eu rhanio gan ystodau. Mae'n cael ei gweithio'r cyllidio'r cyllidio. Y llwydd gweithio'r llwydd, wrth gwrs, ond mae'n gweithio'r llwydd gweithio'r llwydd. Mae'n cael ei gweithio'r llwydd gwaith i gael gweithio'r llwydd. Maen nhw'n sylfa maedraeth ar y museum bryd, rhan gwyllprosol, ac mae'n gweithio'r ddwyllt yn ei hwn. Mae'n dweud yw'r ddwyllt yn y dyfodol. Mae'n ei ffawr i siwr ymddynt, oherwydd mae'n ddwyllt yn y ddwyllt yn y ddwyllt, bo'r ddwyllt yn ei ddwyllt yn y ddwyllt yn ei ddwyllt yn y ddwyllt yn yr ysgolol yn y ddwyllt. Ond oherwydd, rydyn ni'n gwneud o'r cyllidion gyda maethau o brithau yma ar Brithn yw'r cyllidion, Llywodraeth, Rydydd cyllidion o'r Llywodraeth, Llywodraeth Cymru. Manyach ddwy o'r ddweud yn gwneud unrhyw unrhyw o'r cilydd o'r cyllidion. Ond yr hyn yn ei gyfwyr o'ch cyllidion, rydych chi'n ddweud o'i cyllidion i'w cilydd ymddangos o'ch cyllidion o'r cyllidion o'r cyllidion o'r cyllidion. We know a little bit about who made these matrices. Certainly Goldsmiths made matrices, there was an account from the Abbey of St Albans where a worker there, probably a monk certainly somebody affiliated with the abbey called Ancthil, in the 12th century was discovered to have been up to no good and here a couple of other monks have clearly been forging things and sifering of precious metals captured when he fled because he didn't want to face up to what he'd done, a half finished seal matrix was found on his bench. So we have insights such as that. We have payments to London Goldsmiths for making the great seal, the seal of the monarch. And there are a number of specialist seal makers who operated certainly larger urban areas. Maen nhw'n meddwl Dr John McCuhran. yn dweud foti gyd yn cyd-ryd gyntaf i meidiwyr Llywodraeth ym Mhobbllol. Mae ddwi'n ddim yn rhaewt ardill yn gallu chi ymddengun, ac mae'n gyrain oedd eu cyfleoedd yma, a mor fwyb faint mae'n sefydli'r strategiaeth yn rhan o'r 11 awr i'r 13 ymddangos. Ym thysg pethau ar y cyfan, dyma'n ddins i Ymddangos Dr McCuhran's ymddangos ymddangos, a bod y bwysig gwn i'r gael yw Llywodraeth, yn ffyrdd i'r hynny'n gymryd, i ddweud o'r ddweud. Felly, ddymaidd, byddai'n gryffo ar y cerdd Cymru ac y rhai o'r ddweud y byddai'n ddweud ar y busin i'r ddweud ac i ddweud o'r ddweud. Rwy'n meddwl i'n meddwl am yw… I'n meddwl am y bwysig, mae'n meddwl ar y busin i'r ddweud. Yn chi'n meddwl i'r ddweud. Ac mae gennym ni gwybod eich gwneud. Mae'r gwirionedd yw'r cyffredinion. Mae'n rhamnod o'r rhan o'r bwrdd, mae'n rhan o'r pethau o'r prifysgfaith cyfathorau. Ond y pethau gwybod eich gwneud, mae'n ganbylch yn bach felly eich ddau'r rhan o'r rhan o'r ffrind. Efallai mae'r wneud o'r ffrind. Ond mae'r rhan o'r ffrind o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r ffrind. Mae'n gwybod eich gwneud. Mae'n gwybod eich gwneud. yn cymdeithasol. A felly mae'n meddwl i'r wych mewn casgau a'r gyfan Plwydo ac mae'n gweld i gweithio'r chyredu. Dwi'r ddiwedd gwir iawn yn fawr yn tynnu'r gwrs, yn ddim yn dod i'r ddweud o'r dwyr dwylo o behad am y cyd-dwylo. Bydd yw'r ddoedd yn maen nhw, mae'n ddallych o duodd gysylltu oherwydd gweld eich hollu i molleg aelod o'r ddod i wneud o'r ffordd o'r ddysgu gwir yn ystod, a'r ddysg maen nhw iddiw i'lla radiol o'r ddysgu gwir. Mae'r ddysgu'r ddysgu gwir, ryw fawn o'r ddylch nhw of just very high status very elaborate objects they're not all in in that made in that way and punches and stamps and also all the engraving has to be done back to front to make sure that the impression is the right way around it might seem quite simple but this is quite sophisticated technologi a'r cwm o'r pryddoch. Mae gynhyrchu yn ymlaen o'r pryddoch yn rhoi tex â'r papartio'r papartio ar Wester Europe. Now, these stamps, these matrices were made to be impressed into a soft material. If I say ceiling wax to you, what do you think of? Any one? Yes, parcels and physically what ceiling wax? Dwi'n ddim gallwch ar y cyddwch. Ac rwy'n cwrs o'r anghyddau gael allan drots이. Mae'n autyn ni'n rhaid—egmau'n deilio gynnig, iddyn nhw'n gwithio'r gwyllt. Gallwch cwrs yn ffordd o'r awdrych o'r awdrych cwrs. Cwrs koel yn ei fod yn deallus yma i Brifennu i Siad Aesir. Ie replicatech yn ffordd, i gyd yn elu wahanol. Y olywedd, yr oedden nhw ar gyfrifol, yn gweithio, llawer o hollu iawn, yn ddwy wazwr, yn ei rhagwlad ychydig, mae'r hollu iawn ar awdurion, ryw, datryd, o gyllid o gyfrifol fel ymwylltu gwêl. Fe'r hollu iawn yn cyllid ddigadol i'r cyfoedd, a'r hollu iawn yn gweithio addysg, i gараe i wneud i'r cyfrifoli'ch ganydd cyfos, ac yn ychydig iawn yn i g�ch, ond jadi they needed to be attached to documents and then the matrix was pushed into this soft disk of wax which hardened and retained the imprint and sometimes, quite often in fact, it's not just the impression of a matrix you find on the wax you find finger hand prints and this is what led to our current project. Felly yna yn yw'r ffordd ymweld? Mae hyn sy'n yn eu lle-fer y trofyn, felly fyddai'r ffordd yw'r mhwyaf. Mae hyn yn fwyf, o'r brod llwyddiwyll ddechrau, o'r metrwch cyfweld, o'r cyd-gwyllt fel y ffordd yw'r ffordd. Mae maedlau'r ffordd i'r iawn o'r ger o'r bocs. Y cyfweld ar gyfer y pelodau gyfweld, yw'r prynsibol ar y blwyddyn, yw guestud ar y sgol. was as a form of validation and authentication representing an individual or an institution or an office that was agreeing to an exchange or a grant of rights that was recorded in written form. And instead of signing your name or putting a pin in as we would do now, a seal matrix was impressed to a lump of wax which was designed to remain with the document and that's what's crucial, that's what validated the document. Is anyone here from Norfolk right? I was only one person prepared to be offended but not by me I hasten to add by a monk from Peter Barat Abbey writing in the later 12th century who thought that the people of Norfolk were not the hardest working or the most intelligent shall I say. And he told a story about a group of unfree peasants who wanted to buy their freedom and they went to their lord and said we've saved up, we want to bar freedom and he grumbled but he needed the money so he said alright. And they said we want it done properly, we know that it should be done with a document. So the lord called a scribe and the rhyme is in, the story is in Latin rhyme but it has a nice insight, it said the lord pressed his seal matrix into the green wax so we get that nice little insight, that validated it. The peasants were delighted, they went off to the local inn just outside the village to celebrate, carried on celebrating and it got dark. And the landlord said I'm not lending you any money for a candle off with you and I thought we're going to fall over, we're going to fall into a drainage ditch suddenly. Some of you already got there. One of them said but look we have already made a candle. We have a lump of wax with a cord running through it. So they snipped it off and they lit the candle and they went back home. Next morning the lord banged on there, the doors, get up your lazy peasants work. Now we're free so he said prove it, I will bring a justice. The peasants brought forth their charter. Justice took one look and said no seal, it's invalid. Now the point about that story is even a drunk Norfolk peasant by the late to 12th century would appreciate the crucial importance of the document retaining its seal, that form of authentication and they were used to authenticate a wide range of documents some very formal charters and grants, both of these are royal documents. These are just a random sample of small grants of land from across England and the parts of Wales that are adopted English law and other types of agreement. For example, that is the sale of a surf and his family in Anglesey in the late 14th century. This is an indenture of apprenticeship between a master and his apprentice and one of the details in this, each one would have kept a copy and the zigzag line is because there had been identical text on each side, one seal one side, one seal the other and exchange and you put them back together to prove they are both part of the original whole. But this one says that the apprentice must not have illicit relations with any of the female members of the master's household. This is a bond, an ephemeral document and there must have been thousands of these that then once the exchange had been made were no longer being used so they've disappeared. But seals were not just about authenticating in the way signature did. They represented an embodied in a way and they're very good at representing an individual institution in relation to their culture and their society and you could use them as a form if you like of propaganda. So the king used the image of the seated figure in majesty. The higher nobility certainly in the 12th and 13th centuries used the equestrian warrior and then started to adopt heraldry. Towns used seals that have a foot west, monasteries, bishops all representing them and as you can see fairly standardised image representing the image of that type of person. But then ordinary men and women used seals really very low down the social scale because even if you're exchanging a very small portion of land you would need to do this on a very small exchange and there was a lot more freedom and experimentation lower down the social scale. So you find all sorts of motifs turning up a homeragment, a menagerie of animals and birds maybe something related to a trade. This is the seal of carpenter and other designs of various sorts. At this stage I'm going to hand over to Philip to tell you a little bit more about the project. Thank you. Elizabeth told you all about those images on the front of the seals but we're thinking about a new project. It's only been going for about a year and that's what we want to talk to you about today. Because it's a new project there are lots of things we don't know there are lots of things we still have questions about. So we might be proposing suggestions about why things are happening but if you've got other ideas if you've got suggestions to make other questions please do make those suggestions or ask those questions because they can help us think in a new way. The project you've been told is called Imprint but actually that's its full title because we're interested here in what forensic scientists can do to help us think about those seals. We're working in connection with a forensic company, forensic focus. We usually work for the home office and they usually work on modern crimes, not on historical research. So this is new for them as well as for us but what they are is fingerprint experts. Finger and hand print experts. They're good at analysing the prints that they get from well now usually from digital images which is what we're thinking about with our medieval seals. Elizabeth's already shown you one of those prints but really what you get on the back of seals and mostly the accidental. You've had to warm the wax up in order to get that impression in. As you do that you leave a print on the back. A palm print usually then though sometimes fingers or thumbs appear there as well. Some of them, as I'll show you in a couple of minutes, look a little bit more deliberate. They look like somebody who's actually just pushed some fingers or knuckles actually into the wax and we see those in Germany and France as well as in England and they're probably doing something a bit different. They're something that's quite interesting. Of course whilst these are really interesting images they're great and they're left behind by people who are thinking about other things. They're just incidental. They demonstrate the individuals who are involved in sealing. What can they do for us? What can they actually do with those? Well our forensics experts can help us to match up some of those prints and they can help us to tell us when prints just don't match and I'll show you examples so when both of those things are important and we are talking here about prints that were left at the time. We're not talking about something I might leave on a piece of paper and you can't see. We're talking about something that's impressed into the wax. It has to have been done at the time when the wax was soft. So it has to have been done when the seal was actually impressed. Now we're not actually trying to identify individuals but we are asking lots of interesting questions to think about society. To give you some idea of what we're doing I just want to show you a short film about the project. So this is in print. It's a collaboration between the University of Lincoln and Aberystwyth University and it's funded by the AHRC and the universities are represented by me and Elizabeth and by two research fellows Dr Holly Morgan who you'll see in this film and as well as looking at the prints we're interested in the whole document. You can see in the film that we're looking at those images on the front. We're looking at the documents attached to them and we take photographs of all of those as part of this. We're adding them with information about the documents their size, their shape, their contents who's involved into a database and to do that to think about this we're surveying large numbers of documents instead we look at one and a half thousand seals and so far we've looked at about five thousand they haven't all had good prints on them about 800 to 900 have but we can see those prints on the back and here we're doing some work with medieval wax recipes we've made up trying to see how they might work what people are doing sealing and hopefully in a second you'll see how you might get that print on the back you see pushing your seal and the print's going to be left on the back this is our forensic equipment it uses you can go through the whole light spectrum to see where you get the best image of the prints on the back sometimes they're viewable with the naked eye but we can get better ones and you can see going through our different print colours here you get the image on the screen and when Holly is happy that she's got the right image she can save that image and we can pass them on to our forensic experts to say we're as interested when we talk to them about seals where the prints don't match it's about seals where they do so project based on the pilot we did some work at Hereford Cathedral were they grateful to Hereford for allowing us to do that for the equivalent of a month's worth of work and looked at about 200 seals to prove that we could actually do it together with our forensic specialists now we're funded for three years by the AHRC and with sampling materials you can see largely from cathedrals and from Westminster Abbey National Library of Wales we're looking for collections we think of as closed collections or to one institution because then you often get matching families different members of different families different generations different pieces of land being followed through which will help us and we're interested in the chronological range about 1150 to 1350 because that's the height of seal use that's when lots of people are developing seals, getting seals, thinking about where seals work and administrative document production is changing as well so we can put both those things together and to think about some key research questions really about when we look at these questions is how were people doing the sealing who's doing it where are they doing it and what does that tell us about who's involved for example could we see that one member of a family seems to be sealing for all of a family could we see just one print on the back of all of a family's seals from a certain generation does it look as though women are allowed to do sealing so let's tell us that the size of the prints they can get sometimes to tell them if it's a man or a woman do things change as documents change as document developments change and can we see evidence of things like forgery if I can see prints from the one that I can match to something for a different generation for example on an earlier document maybe I can see some forgery Elizabeth will talk to you about that in a minute and our forensics experts are also interested because they want to know about technical challenges they're looking at prints on uneven surfaces they're looking at prints that maybe are being twisted around when you're trying to get something out of the wax and you've moved your hand around and they're also interested in the viability of fingerprints and in their uniqueness we are used to the idea that fingerprints are unique and that that will help your feel for accused of a crime and I'm here to tell you no one's proved that yet so congratulations I don't know if that means you should all go out and commit crimes or just be very very scared and because there have been some famous miscarriages of justice based on fingerprint evidence there's fingerprints made up of different points different shapes how many of those have to be seen together before the print is unique to get the statistical evidence that people need to prove that fingerprints are unique they need a wide range of prints 13th century prints are going to be great they're really useful if we can match 13th century prints put them in the same database as modern prints and say they still don't match that gives us something to work with so they're really excited about that but we're finding some other interesting material I'm going to show you just a couple of examples Hereford Cathedral these are five seals all with the same print on the back if I turned them over they would all have different matrices on they all belong to different people now that's interesting because it suggests that though your seal is you and your identity and it validates the document and says you give your consent to something you don't necessarily insist in the early 13th century on holding the piece of wax yourself when the matrix goes in what that tells us about what people are doing and how they're thinking is an interesting thing we can think about later if you want to but it's an interesting point to have made and they're Hereford Cathedral prints that doesn't though mean that we don't think that there is any involvement of individuals actually who are involved whose seals and matrices are being impressed we should get things like this those are knuckle prints there are absolutely no use for actually impressing the matrix in fact they would have made life a bit more difficult and I don't know if you can see very clearly but there are prints around them and those are palm prints like they've been done the same way as we saw in the film so it looks as though after somebody has pushed the matrix in probably before they take it out hopefully somebody has pushed their knuckles into the back why well maybe the individual whose matrix it is isn't very good at impressing it himself and he wants to someone say prove that you really believe this prove that you know you're really involved prove to yourself and me and sometimes they seem to have got it a bit wrong that's an extra print and that's actually a bishop seal on the back this is another extra print that's 14th century this is 13th this believe it or not is that and I think on this version which is from the crime light imager you can see better that there actually is some sort of image in there like a ring's being pressed in it's not very clear there but something's gone very wrong with it probably this has gone very wrong with it again got the palm print across the back you've got so someone's done what they would expect pushed in the matrix but they seem to have taken it out turned it over and said now you press your thumb you knuckle into this oh whoops we've just ruined the matrix never mind but it demonstrates that that's part of the way that people could be doing this we're also interested in how images match up with actual with seals with prints this person William of Henover has a nice matrix here you can see nice fancy image and over here only those aren't identical they're very different well very different though a little bit different so when he needs a new matrix perhaps he's lost it, perhaps he's damaged it perhaps he's worn out he gets one that's almost identical it's part of him he wants it to say something about him but the prints on the back of these documents and we have about seven of his all different they're very close in date but they're all different again he's not insisting on holding onto that piece of wax when he puts his matrix in even though he is so connected with it that he wants the same image all the time that's what you can get when you might get somebody who is involved in their seal who is very connected to their seal who is very who thinks about that one particular image as them it's interesting I think that he does think that image is him because it's not an image of a saint he worships for example it's not an image that shows me something about his job he's actually a landlord that's why we brought all these documents because he just impresses his seal into receipts when he collects his rent from him for cathedral but that's not the only way forward Elizabeth said that we're going to talk about another young woman not just Alice and this is one of our examples this is a woman who seals a number of documents and she's actually from Lincoln so one of our other cathedrals that we were involved with she's called Bella she's daughter of Alan de Heller she calls herself Bella Heller because she would wouldn't you unless she's Bella de Heller but that doesn't help much either we don't know much about the family they seem to have owned land in the city of Lincoln towards the east a couple of parishes towards the east just a possibility they're connected to another de Heller family that owned property outside the city but it doesn't look very likely the dates don't match up very well so they're not big landowners she's comfortable she has enough and she lives in the late 13th into the early 14th probably century but certainly through the late 13th century all of these are her seal what's she doing then well we can trace how Bella thinks about herself I think how she thinks about her status how she thinks about what she can do and her confidence by looking at these different images this is the first one over here now we know that's her first seal because it's attached to a document on the back it says Bella has just been declared to be of age to seal documents this is the first one she's allowed to do she's in front of the mayor she's guaranteeing a bit of land in the Parish of St Rheumwold to a chapwg William the Illuminator who does a lot of deals with her and it's land that her fathers previously owned if she's just of age the youngest she is is about 16 probably for leaving land she could be a bit older but she may well be a teenager and she's picked up a seal probably her first seal because this is probably the first time she's been allowed to use a seal if she's not granted much land any land before then and the seal is very simple just what we think of a sort of radial image like she's walked into a seal maker of not bad quality because the lettering around the edge is quite good, it's quite nicely spaced it's not bad quality, he said I need a seal and he's given her something cheap or something simple start with that I'll put your name round the edge of it and that's where she begins that's probably about 1267 a few years later she's making use of another seal and that's this one over here now we know she's using this in the early 1270s because we've got copies of it, it's more than one probably she's using it's about 1269 so only a couple of years after her last seal because we have a document dated then issued by in her name and the sort of imprint on the wax, on the tag the wax has gone, we've imprinted on the tag the shape and the size would match that seal it certainly isn't the little round one so probably a couple of years later she's changed her seal she's making a number of grants again largely the ones that survive to William the illuminator it looks like she's making grants to other people as well she mentions other individuals in the parishes that have hold land from her but she's got a slightly better and slightly more interesting maybe seal the lettering is still quite nice and probably about the same quality as that she's got a bit of money she can afford to get something of quite nice quality all the letters are the right way round and as I said you have to do it backwards and they aren't always on seals, people who go through their lives with a seal with one L that always comes out backwards but this is what we call a sort of stylised lily you might think that it's more of a sort of floodily image it's still quite a common image it's not a very unusual image but it is maybe a little bit of a step up from the radial image so she's moving on she's doing slightly different things a few years later in the late 1270s and 1280s she's using this seal now by now she's doing some really quite interesting deals she's gone back over all those early grants of land she made and she's up to the rent so where you used to pay a couple of pence to get land from Bella now she's charging you a shilling a year she knows the status of what she's got she knows the value of what she's doing she makes an agreement with William the Illuminator where she says T what I'll give you first refusal and that comes available that I have but in return for that first refusal you must pay me 12 shillings now down and there are 8 shillings that you owe me a year which is obviously now what is accumulated you still keep paying back so she's making good deals she knows what she's doing she's confident and this seal is much more elaborate it's it's got a more elaborate this is again a sort of stylised lily but if you look it's much more sort of elaborate feathered pressure there more elaborate down here the lettering is still quite good but it's perhaps a bit fuller bit clearer the seal is actually a bit bigger as well so in this case Bella is using her seal to make statement perhaps about her position her confidence, her status and she's doing that by changing it I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about the prints on the back of Bella's seals because they aren't good enough quality for us to be able to do anything with that I was hoping I could get prints of a 16 year old and we could look at different size of prints and how this changed but we aren't going to be able to do that but she is a fascinating story and at this point I want to turn over to Elizabeth to do some more fascinating stories right, thank you well we go now from really interesting, very astute woman to somebody else from Lincoln but this time a man who became a saint this is Hugh Bishop of Lincoln who was canonised I've immediately forgotten 12.01, thank you very much he was known to have been very active in terms of his involvement in documents and sealing a lot of bishops, all bishops had a seal which represented them in their office as bishop and you find this standardised image of the representation of a bishop there he is wearing the mitre carrying the pastoral staff blessing that's not a portrait of Hugh that's a representation of a bishop and quite often we have circumstantial evidence that bishops would say to their clerk oh you impress that or you carry that with you but Hugh, from his life that was written because he was deemed as very holy even during his lifetime was said to have been very actively involved that he requested that documents were read to him once they'd been written that he was actively involved in the validation process so presumably in the impressing of his seal and you can't sit terribly well in this photograph but I assure you that there are visible prints on the back of this and another of Hugh's seals in Lincoln Cathedral archives and we're now double checking because we think we might have other impressions in possibly at Hereford Cathedral Mr Abbey and we are waiting for our forensic expert to come back and tell us whether any of those are matching because if they are we will have the fingerprints of a medieval saint and the Middle Ages I think classified as a very good relic of a saint and I've also mentioned forgery or the misuse authority again we know that sometimes people are up to no good with each other seals could be stolen or they could be misused but also institutions could create additional proof for themselves Westminster Abbey was given a lot of land in the late Anglo-Saxon period before the time when seals were regularly attached to documents in the 11th and 12th centuries when when proof was needed through the attachment of a seal they suddenly had this problem how did they prove they really had their land so they found a sealed document from Saint Dunstan now for many many years scholars have assumed this is a creation of the later 12th century it looks very much like an Anglo-Saxon charter of the 10th century but it is wrong in just a few ways including the fact that it's got a very large prominent seal and particularly that it has the impressions of two different matrices one on the front, a large one and then one on the back which is exactly what you'd expect from a later 12th century document but nobody's ever conclusively proven this and it's covered in prints and I would love to have been able to tell you whether or not we have been able to match those with other known later 12th century prints but again we're still waiting for the analysis however if we can do that we will have solved nearly 900 year old case of acquiring a little bit more than perhaps they originally had so this talk really comes at a a period in our project where we're already getting what I hope you'll agree are some fascinating results but it's raising more and more questions and this one in particular brings together the historical interest the creation of documents the forming of a sealed instrument the accepting of a seal the impression of a matrix into wax as being so important possibly a forgery and the forensic side because this is proving extremely difficult for the forensic experts to analyse because it's very rounded, it's quite shiny and so it's pushing them it's pushing the technology, it's pushing this and that as Philip was mentioning will help feed back into work that they do for the home office and police forces and forces more generally so I think quite a I spoke at a forensics conference last Easter and when my brother had stopped laughing he did say that he had never thought that I would be involved in such hard-edged scientific research and there is still plenty more for those from the historical side so I hope that this has given you an insight into seals, sealing practices but also this new project how we can use new technologies to investigate very old material and as I said at the outset we're very happy to take questions thank you