In the Carolingian period, Charlemagne and his successors continued the use of the same formulas.

The possession of signet rings by well-born women, although not usual in Roman times, became quite common in the early Middle Ages, under the influence of the Germanic peoples, which accorded to woman a much more important station than did the Romans or Gallo-Romans. Among the relics of the Merovingian period that have been preserved to our day, is the ring of Berteildis, one of the wives of Dagobert I (602?-638).[237] It is of silver and is inscribed with the name of the queen and the monogram of the word regina.[238] A document from the time of Childeric II, dated in 637, shows impressions of two queenly signets, one that of Emnechildis, wife of Sigebert II, King of Austrasia and guardian of Childeric, and the other belonging to Blichildis, Childeric’s wife.

In the tomb of the Frankish king Childeric I (458–481 A.D.), accidentally discovered at Tournai in 1653, in an ancient cemetery of the parish church of St. Brica, were found a number of valuable relics of this sovereign, among them his signet ring. After having been taken to Vienna by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, then governor of the Low Countries, the treasure came, after his death, into the Imperial Cabinet there. In 1665 the Archbishop of Mayence secured from Emperor Leopold I permission to offer it to Louis XIV. In July of this year the precious objects were transmitted to the French king and were deposited in the Cabinet de Médailles, recently constituted in the Louvre. Shortly afterward, they were transferred to the Bibliothèque du Roi, and were safely preserved in this institution, under its changing names, until 1831, when the ring and other of the Childeric relics, as well as a number of other historic objects, were stolen from the library. The ring was never recovered. Fortunately there exists a very exact description and a figuration of the ring in an account of the treasure published in 1655, at Antwerp, by Jean Jacques Chifflet, first physician of the Archduke.[239] The ring, which is of massive gold, bears a large oval bezel on which is engraved the bust, full face. The sovereign is beardless, with long hair parted in the middle and hanging down to his shoulders. The bust is garbed in Roman style; on the tunic may be seen a decorative plaque. The king’s right hand holds a lance which rests on his shoulder, as may be observed in the imperial medals of Constantine II, Theodosius II, and their successors. The legend, in the genitive case, Childerici Regis, presupposes the word signum or sigillum, as the ring was unquestionably a signet. M. Deloche considers it probable that it was made on the occasion of Childeric’s marriage with Basnia, Queen of Thuringia, who had abandoned her native land and her husband to wed the Frankish sovereign. Clovis I (481–511) was the offspring of this union. Although the original has been lost there has fortunately been preserved an imprint from it on the margin of a manuscript in the Bibliothèque de Sainte Geneviève; of the entire ring there is the carefully executed drawing made for Chifflet’s work.[240]

In many cases the Carolingian monarchs rendered their signets, set with antique gems, significant of their own personality by having their names engraved around the setting. In this way Carloman (741–747) utilized an antique gem showing a female bust with hair tied in a knot, while Charlemagne’s choice was a gem engraved with the head of Marcus Aurelius; at a later time he substituted for this one bearing the head of the Alexandrian god Serapis. It is noteworthy that there is a great likeness between the portraits of Antoninus Pius and the type chosen for Serapis. Louis I, le Debonnaire (814–840), selected a portrait of Antoninus Pius, and his son, Lothaire, Roman emperor, 840–855 A.D., a gem with Caracalla’s head, the choice being no inappropriate one in view of Lothaire’s weak and treacherous character. Rev. C. W. King conjectures that the selection of the particular head may have depended upon its resemblance, more or less close, to the features of the monarch, as even though the likeness should not be very exact, the work would surpass anything that the unskilful gem-cutters of this age could produce.[241]

Of the seal of the Prophet Mohammed, we are told by Ibn Kaldoun that when he was about to send a letter to the Emperor Heraclius, his attention was called to the fact that no letter would be received by a foreign potentate unless it bore the impression of the Prophet’s seal. Mohammed therefore had a seal made of silver, bearing the inscription “Mohammed rasûl Allah,” “Mohammed the Apostle of God”; these three words, according to Al-Bokhari, were disposed in three lines. The Prophet made use of this seal and forbade the making of any one like it. After his death it was employed by his successors, Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman, but the last-named unluckily let it fall from his hand into the well of Aris, whose depth it had never been possible to measure. A duplicate was executed to replace the original, but its loss was greatly deplored, and was looked upon as a possible presage of ill-fortune.[242] The title inscribed upon it was prouder in its simplicity than that assumed by any other ruler, not excepting those who claimed for themselves a divine ancestry, or divine attributes. These could at most pretend to rank as divinities of a lower order, while Mohammed claimed to be the mouthpiece of the one and only God.

Burton writes that it is “a tradition of the Prophet” that the carnelian is the best stone for a signet ring, and this is still the usage among Mohammedans in the Orient. In the Arabian tale entitled “History of Al Hajjaj ben Yusuf and the Young Sayyed,” we read that the signet should be of carnelian because the stone was a guard against poverty.[243]

Some Arabic signets bore peculiarly apt inscriptions. One of these reads: “Correspondence is only a half-joy,” a delicate piece of flattery for the recipient of a letter bearing this seal. Another signet gives the following very necessary warning to the person to whom the letter is addressed, should it happen to contain something which ought not to be revealed. “If more than two know it, the secret is out.”[244] Such inscriptions are certainly more significant than a motto of less special meaning.

In an essay on Arabic signets, Hammer-Purgstall[245] calls attention to a fundamental distinction between talismans and signets. With the former, the inscription is engraved so that it may be read as it stands, while with the latter the characters are reversed so that only the impression gives them in their proper order. Besides this, the talismans rarely contain the wearer’s name, which is the most essential part of the signet. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that in many cases the signet was at the same time a talisman.

That lovers—even Mohammedan lovers—in the seventeenth century, had romantic designs engraved upon seal rings, is illustrated by what Garzoni relates concerning the seal ring of “Mahometh Bassa.” This bore the figure of a silk-worm upon a mulberry leaf, the design commemorating the wearer’s love for a Moorish girl, and signifying that he drew his life from her as did the silk-worm from the leaf.[246]