Thus it appears that prepared earths were first used for the purpose of sealing; their adhesive, or, as Virgil has it, their tenacious qualities, being wonderfully improved for manual labour. Next, paste was employed, prepared from dough.
To paste succeeded common wax, sometimes slightly tinctured with a green tint, the effect of endeavouring to give it a blue colour, as vegetable blues turn green by the process of heat employed in melting; whilst mineral or earthy blues all sink to the bottom, from superior gravity. This was the material employed in sealing public acts in England, as early as the fifteenth century. We have an anecdote of the Duke of Lancaster having no seal to ratify a deed between him and the Duke of Burgoyne, but from what appears in the attestation, which, with the instrument itself, according to the general custom of the day, runs in rhyme thus:
“I, John of Gaunt,
Doe gyve and do graunt,
To John of Burgoyne
And the heire of his loyne
Sutton and Putton
Untill the world’s rotten.”
The attestation runs thus:
“There being no seal within the roof,
In sooth, I seal it wyth my tooth.”
A good example is this of the simple brevity of the time, and a severe lecture upon the eternal repetitions of our modern lawyers, whereby the limitations and special uses of deeds are made, perhaps, not according to the necessities of the case, but are lengthened from selfish purposes.
The Great Charter, which gives an assurance of the rights of Englishmen, is sealed with white wax; as may be seen in the British Museum.
The first arms used as a seal in England, were those of the tyrannical subjugator of English rights, William, commonly called the Conqueror, and they were brought from Normandy.
Although Fenn, in his collection of original Letters of the last half of the fifteenth century, published in London, 1787, has given the size and shape of the seals, he does not apprise us of what substance they were composed. Respecting a letter of 1455, he says only, that “the seal is of red wax,” by which, it is presumed, he means common wax; and though, perhaps not equal in quality to such as is now used, yet it was made of nearly similar materials. Tavernier, in his Travels, says, that in Surat gum-lac is melted and formed into sticks, like sealing-wax. Wecker also gives directions to make an impression with calcined gypsum and a solution of gum or isinglass. Porta, likewise, knew that this might be done, and, perhaps, to greater perfection with amalgam of quicksilver.