Meredith Davis, R. (2021). Material evidence? Re-approaching elite women’s seals and charters in late medieval Scotland. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 150. Vol 150, Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. pp. 301-326.
 Title The title of the publication or report |
Material evidence? Re-approaching elite women’s seals and charters in late medieval Scotland | ||||
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Issue The name of the volume or issue |
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 150 | ||||
Series The series the publication or report is included in |
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland | ||||
Volume Volume number and part |
150 | ||||
Page Start/End The start and end page numbers. |
301 - 326 | ||||
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Licence Type ADS, CC-BY 4.0 or CC-BY 4.0 NC. |
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Publication Type The type of publication - report, monograph, journal article or chapter from a book |
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Abstract The abstract describing the content of the publication or report |
Medieval Scottish women’s seals remain largely unexplored compared to the scholarship on seals and sealing practice elsewhere in medieval Britain. This article has two chief aims. First, it seeks to demonstrate the insufficiencies of the 19th- and 20th-century Scottish seal catalogues as a mediated record of material evidence and the use of them as comprehensive and go-to reference texts within current research on late medieval Scotland. This includes a discussion of the ways in which medieval seals survive as original impressions, casts and illustrations and how these different types of evidence can be used in the construction and reconstruction of the seal’s and charter’s context. Second, this paper will explore the materiality and interconnectedness of seals and the charters to which they are attached. A reading of these two objects together emphasises the legal function of the seal and shows its distinctive purpose as a representational object. While the seal was used in con-texts beyond the basic writ charter, it remained a legally functional and (auto)biographical object, and, as such, the relationship between seal and charter informs meaning in representational identities expressed in both. The article will apply this approach to several examples of seals belonging to 14th- and 15th-century Scottish countesses. Evidence reviewed this way provides new insight into Scottish women’s sealing practice and female use of heraldic device. The deficiencies of assuming women’s design to be formulaic or that their seals can be usefully interpreted in isolation from the charters to which they were attached will be highlighted. The interconnectedness of word and image conveyed personal links and elite ambitions, and promoted noble lineage within the legal context of charter production. | ||||
Year of Publication The year the book, article or report was published |
2021 | ||||
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Created Date The date the record of the pubication was first entered |
02 Feb 2022 |
