History of seals which had inherited since ancient oriental culture died out momentarily after the downfall of Roman Empire.
Crusade was organized for any of the more or less continuous military expeditions in the 11th to 13th century when Christian powers of Europe tried to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims and it plundered churches of seals and took those back home. This incident gave a chance to make a seal restore.
Legend has it that a stone seal had been believed to have potential occult abilities hidden inside it so stone seals were initially processed into a ring and a necklace, a pendant and became in fashion to use for amulet among nobles. Royalty and titled nobility used it as amulet hiding magical occult inside.
Minister of Justice is “Guardian of seal”
As time passed, custom of stamping seal became widespread in Europe and the king, nobles, priest and also common people started using a seal
This is because there was a background the demand of public seals used for all sorts of procedures at the government agency increased with the development of the feudal system.
In those times, public seal and private seal were distinguished clearly and seal which was often used for red-tape procedures was stamp-style seal.
Royalty and titled nobility in official position also had private ring-type seal and used dually private seal on a document after stamping public seal to avoid counterfeiting of Official Documents.
Before long, France and England built public seal management and agreement for the use of a public seal into an institution and policy measure and set a administrative position for the management of public seal.
“Grande de Sceau” in France and “Lord Privy Seal” in England are the vestige of seal administrative position that once existed.
In those days, the punishment regulated in an institution was imposed on an abuse of sealing, loss, counterfeit.
The size of a seal influencing owner’s social position
The size of a seal is closely related with owner’s social position in feudal society of Europe and royalty and titled nobility tended to use a big size seal. The King seal was extremely big and a count and duke is always bigger than aristocracies. If the king dies, the king seal was destroyed in strict ceremony with ministers’ attend in Church.
Emblem used in the design of engraving.
The start of emblem was that nobilities drawn mark on the shield to prove own social position when joining Crusade. After 12 century, Using seal design for shield emblem came into fashion among nobilities in European aristocracy society.
The right to use emblem is limited to only aristocracy but in14th century, this limitation was eased and churches and regional cities adopted original emblem and common people also came to be able to use emblem.
However, after ww1, the opportunity to use seals had reduced and sealing is no longer practical these days, which means public post system had been developed and an adhesive envelope was capable of keeping confidentiality completely and the aristocracy classes placing importance on family standing had gradually declined.