Since the Middle Ages, seals have accompanied the exercise of power, the authentication of documents, and the transmission of authority. When affixed to a document, a seal does more than simply close it: it confers legal, symbolic, and political value. It is both a material object, as the impression left by a matrix, and an image and a sign of legitimacy.
The seals preserved at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Florence, although they have already travelled physically, tell a story that is often discreet yet central to the early stages of European integration. They bear witness to the institutions, individuals, and administrative practices that have shaped contemporary Europe. Each seal reveals a visual language – coats of arms, emblems, inscriptions – designed to assert an identity, an authority, or a mission.
This exhibition invites visitors to discover the seal as an archival object: how it was designed, used, preserved, and interpreted – first by the producers of archives in their own time, and today by contemporary archivists and historians. By observing these impressions, sometimes poorly preserved, visitors are encouraged to reflect on the trust placed in documents, the continuity of institutions, and the ways in which power leaves its stamp in material form.
Through the seal, an entire history of writing, administration, and Europe itself is revealed – one in which a simple object becomes a bearer of collective memory.
Seal terminology
Following the definition proposed by the medieval historian Michel Pastoureau, a seal is an impression left by the pressure of an engraved matrix on a document.
- de.: Siegel - en.: seal - es.: sello - fr.: sceau - it.: sigillo - la.: sigillum -
The Vocabulaire international de la diplomatique and the Vocabulaire international de la sigillographie offer a similar definition, describing the seal as an impression made on a support by the application of a matrix bearing signs specific to an authority or to a natural or legal person, intended to attest to the will of intervention of the sealer.
[1] : Conseil international des archives, Comité de sigillographie, Vocabulaire international de la Sigillographie, Roma, Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali. Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1990, p. 44.
[2] : Commission Internationale de Diplomatique, Vocabulaire international de la diplomatique, ed. Maria Milagros Cárcel Ortí, 2. ed., Valéncia 1997 (Collecció Oberta), p. 121, n°502 “Le sceau”.
“The seal”: a metonymy for three forms
A seal matrix is an instrument bearing, engraved in intaglio and in reverse, the distinctive marks of an authority or of a natural or legal person. These marks constitute what is known as the “seal type” and are intended to be impressed onto a support.
The HAEU do not, strictly speaking, preserve seal matrices as such. However, they are fortunate to hold, gathered in a single box, a set of stamps used by certain European federalist movements. These stamps were not intended to produce wax impressions, but rather to apply ink impressions to official documents. The contemporary nature of these practices is especially relevant.
An impression is the permanent mark left by the pressure of the matrix on a support, or on a material attached to that support. It is this impression on an original document that is most commonly referred to by the generic term “seal”, as it is the form most frequently encountered today.
The material act of sealing was carried out by a sealing officer within the chancery or registry, responsible for applying the matrix at the bottom of the document. The seal could be applied directly to the document or appended to the act by means of a cord or strip.
The number of preserved seal impressions is estimated at two to three million for the whole of medieval Christendom. Most remain attached to their original charters and are preserved in archival repositories and libraries. Others were detached from their original supports during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and now form collections of detached seals held in museums or archives. However, wax impressions are extremely fragile objects, and many seals have now completely disappeared. In order To safeguard the essential part of the French sigillographic heritage, a vast campaign of inventorying and moulding was undertaken in the second half of the nineteenth century, under the auspices of the Service des sceaux of the Archives of the Empire, created specifically for this purpose. Seal impressions preserved in Paris and in numerous provincial archival repositories were recorded and moulded. The results of this endeavour matched the scale of the monumental task accomplished within just a few years.
Beyond their role in preservation, these moulds played a crucial part in the dissemination of knowledge in sigillography. At a time when photography was still in its infancy, costly, or simply unavailable for this type of reproduction, plaster casting offered the most reliable means of studying and comparing seals without handling the originals. These copies enabled scholars to examine forms, legends, and sigillary imagery at a distance, thus fostering the emergence and development of sigillography as a scholarly discipline in the nineteenth century.
As Louis Douët d’Arcq, the first curator of the Service des sceaux of the Archives of the Empire, emphasized, that these moulds were intended to “place before the eyes of scholars monuments that cannot be transported or reproduced by any other means.” They were widely used for teaching, scholarly publications, and major editorial enterprises, notably the inventories and catalogues of seals compiled by archivist-palaeographers. Long before the widespread use of documentary photography, moulding thus served as a central tool for the circulation of knowledge and for networking among European scholars.
The seal: an imprint of authority and memory
The seal primarily serves to authenticate, validate, and guarantee a document. In this respect, it constitutes an exceptional source, as it provides information about the identity and authority of its holder (an individual, a state, or an institution). Through this seemingly modest yet richly meaningful object, seals allow for the analysis of the material and symbolic forms of legitimacy within the earliest European institutions. They reveal issues relevant both to contemporary diplomatics and to European institutional history.
As a sign of identity, the seal commits its holder when it is affixed to a document. It is “the imago of the sealer, that is to say, his personal image, the one to which he transmits his auctoritas, the one that legally represents and extends him, emblematises and symbolises him, the one that is both himself and his double” [1].
[1] M. Pastoureau, “Les sceaux et la fonction sociale des images”, in L’image. Fonctions et usage des images dans l’Occident médiéval, Les Cahiers du Léopard d’Or, no. 5, Paris, 1996, p. 287.
From their very creation, the legitimacy and visibility of the first European institutions posed pressing questions. From this perspective, sigillography offers a particularly fruitful lens through which to investigate the material beginnings of the European administrative machinery. Through their seals, their working languages, and the dynamics of their documentary production, institutions such as the Court of Justice and the EURATOM Commission gradually developed a set of signs and practices intended to embody the authority of Community law.
The seal emerges as an instrument that is both symbolic and legal: it guarantees the authenticity of acts while contributing to the construction of a shared visual and institutional identity. The study of these devices thus sheds light on the ways in which European institutions built their legitimacy through the symbolic shaping of judicial and administrative power, reconciling historical inheritance with the demands of modern standardisation.
Sealed Mission
The administrative seal of the EURATOM Commission : archives of an authority in the making
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