Sixthly, it is requiſite that the party, whoſe deed it is, ſhould ſeal, and in moſt caſes I apprehend ſhouldy ſign it alſo. The uſe of ſeals, as a mark of authenticity to letters and other inſtruments in writing, is extremely antient. We read of it among the Jews and Perſians in the earlieſt and moſt ſacred records of hiſtory[1]. And in the book of Jeremiah there is a very remarkable inſtance, not only of an atteſtation by ſeal, but alſo of the other uſual formalities attending a Jewiſh purchaſe[2]. In the civil law alſo[3], ſeals were the evidence of truth; and were required, on the part of the witneſſes at leaſt, at the atteſtation of every teſtament. But in the times of our Saxon anceſtors, they were not much in uſe here. For though ſir Edward Coke[4] relies on an inſtance of king Edwyn's making uſe of a ſeal about an hundred years before the conqueſt, yet it does not follow that this was the uſage among the whole nation: and perhaps the charter he mentions may be of doubtful authority, from this very circumſtance, of being ſealed; ſince we are aſſured by all our antient hiſtorians, that ſealing was not then in common uſe. The method of the Saxons was for ſuch as could write to ſubſcribe their names, and, whether they could write or not, to affix the ſign of the croſs: which cuſtom our illiterate vulgar do, for the moſt part, to this day keep up; by ſigning a croſs for their mark, when unable to write their names. And indeed this inability to write, and therefore making a croſs in it's ſtead, is honeſtly avowed by Caedwalla, a Saxon king, at the end of one of his charters[5]. In like manner, and for the ſame unſurmountable reaſon, the Normans, a brave but
- ↑ 1 Kings. c. 21. Daniel. c.6. Eſther. c. 8.
- ↑ "And I bought the field of Hanameel, and weighed him the money, even ſeventeen ſhekels of ſilver. And I ſubſcribed the evidence, and ſealed it, and took witneſſes, and weighed him the money in the ballances. And I took the evidence of the purchaſe, both that which was ſealed according to the law and cuſtom, and alſo that which was open." c. 32.
- ↑ Inſt. 2. 10. 2 & 3.
- ↑ 1 Inſt. 7.
- ↑ "Propria manu pro ignorantia literarum ſignum ſanctae crucis expreſſi et ſubſcripti." Seld. Jan. Angl. l. 1. §. 42. And this (acccording to Procopius) the emperor Juſtin in the eaſt, and Theodoric king of the Goths in Italy, had before authorized by their example, on account of their inability to write.
