The seal to which Mr. Birch refers bore the legend "Mathildis dei Gratia Romanorum regina."
The question, of course, at once arises as to the amount of reliance that can be placed on the above transcriber's note. For my part, while fully admitting the right to reject such evidence, I cannot believe that any transcriber would for his own private gratification have forged such a legend, which he could not hope to foist upon the world, if it were indeed a forgery, since a reference to the original would at once expose him.[873] And it is quite certain that we cannot account for it by any misreading, however gross. A comparison of the two legends will put this out of the question:—
Mathildis dei gratia Romanorum regina.
Matildis Imperatrix Rom' et regina Angliæ.
If we accept the fact, and believe the legend genuine, the first point to strike us is the substitution of "Imperatrix" for "Regina Romanorum."
It is passing strange that Maud should have retained, indeed that she should ever have possessed, a seal which gave her no higher style than that of "Queen of the Romans." It is true that at the time of her actual betrothal (1110), her husband was not, in strictness, "emperor," not having yet been crowned at Rome; yet the performance of that ceremony a few months later (April, 1111) made him fully "emperor." At the time therefore of their marriage and joint coronation (1114), they were, one would imagine, "emperor" and "empress;" and indeed we read in the Lüneburg Chronicle, "dar makede he se to keiserinne." At the same time, as has been well observed, "matters of phrase and title are never unimportant, least of all in an age ignorant and superstitiously antiquarian,"[874] and there must be some good reason for what appears to be a singular contradiction, though the point is overlooked by Mr. Birch. Two explanations suggest themselves. The one is that while Henry was fully and strictly "emperor," having been duly crowned at Rome, his wife, having only been crowned in Germany (1114), was not entitled to the style of "empress," but only to that of "Queen of the Romans." As against this, it would seem impossible that the wife of a crowned emperor can have been anything but an empress. Moreover, from the pleadings of her advocate at Rome, in 1136 (see p. 257 n.), we learn incidentally that she had duly been "anointed to empress." The only other explanation is that her seal had been engraved in 1110—when the emperor was, as I have shown, only "Rex Romanorum"—and had not been altered since.
It is important to remember that a seal is evidence of formal style, and not of current phraseology. In spite of the efforts of Messrs. Bryce and Freeman to insist on accuracy in the matter, it is certain that at the time of which I write a most loose usage prevailed. Thus William of Malmesbury, although he specially records the solemn coronation of Henry V. as "Imperator Romanorum," at Rome in 1111, speaks of him as "Imperator Alemanniæ," or "Imperator Alemannorum," both before and after that event. This circumstance is the more notable, because I cannot find that style recognized in Mr. Bryce's work, where the terms "German Emperor" and "Emperor of Germany" are treated as recent corruptions.[875] Its common use in the twelfth century is shown by the scene, in the next reign, between Herbert of Bosham and the king (May 1, 1166), when the latter takes the former to task for speaking of Frederick as "King," not as "Emperor" of the Germans. Had Henry enjoyed the advantage of sitting under our own professors, he would have insisted on Frederick being styled Emperor of the Romans; but as he lived in the twelfth century, he employed, to the annoyance of modern pedants, the current language of his day.[876]
It was natural and fitting that, the legend on her seal being at variance with her style, the Empress should embrace the opportunity afforded, by the making of a wholly new seal, to bring the two into harmony.
The next point is the adoption of the form "Angliæ," not "Anglorum." This, at first sight, seemed suspicious. For though the abbreviation found in charters ("Angl'") might stand for "Anglorum" or for "Angliæ," the legend on the seal of Stephen, as on that of Henry I., contains the form "Anglorum;" and Matilda styled herself in her charters "Anglorum" (not "Anglie) Domina." But the remarkable fact that both the queens of Henry I. bore on their seals the legend "Sigillum ... Reginæ Anglie" led me to the conclusion that, so far from impugning, this form actually confirmed the genuineness of the alleged legend.
It will doubtless be asked why this seal should have been affixed, so far as we know, to this charter alone. But it is precisely this that gives it so great an interest. For this is the only known instance of an original charter, still surviving, belonging to the brief but eventful period of the Empress's stay at Westminster on the eve of her intended coronation.[877] It may safely be presumed that a Great Seal was made in readiness for this event, and that its legend would necessarily include the style of "Queen of England." The Empress, in at least two of her charters, had already, though irregularly, assumed this style,[878] and was clearly eager to adopt it. As to her retention of her foreign style on her seal as an English sovereign, it might be suggested that she clung to the loftiest style of all[879] from that haughty pride which was to prove fatal to her claims; but it is more likely that she found it needful to distinguish thus her style from that of her rival's queen. For by a singular coincidence, they would both have had, in the ordinary course, upon their seals precisely the same legend, viz. "Mathildis dei gratia Regina Anglie."[880]
We may then, I think, thus account for the presence of this seal at Westminster, and for its use, with characteristic eagerness, by the Empress on this occasion. We may also no less satisfactorily account for the fact that it was never used again. For this, indeed, the events that followed the fall of the Empress from her high estate, and the virtual collapse of her hopes, may be held sufficiently to account. But it is quite possible that in the headlong flight of the Empress and her followers from Westminster, the Great Seal may have fallen, with the rest of her abandoned treasure, into the hands of her triumphant foes.