Rediscovering the seal of King Edward the Confessor

There is a particular nightmare that affects archivists And research as in respect of historic manuscript collections.

That is that material gets misfiled - returned to the wrong box, or the file misplaced in the stacks, whatever - and when it goes missing, no one knows when, if ever, it will come to light. The next person who wants to consult the file may not come along for a year, or for a decade, or for a century. Virtually anonymous boxes in amongst so many others that look almost identical are far less easy to monitor than books in a library store, and that is no easy matter in itself.

The phys.org website reports the happy and fortuitous rediscovery in 2021 in the Archives Nationales in Paris of the best surviving example of the seal of King Edward the Confessor. Dated to the years 1053 to 1057 and authorising a grant to the abbey of St Denis it has become detached from the original charter, and disappeared without trace into the depths of the Archives Nationales some forty years ago.

The article discusses the emergence of this, the first English Great Seal, and what it reveals about St Edward’s concept of his kingship as well as what it indicates about his chancery.

It is the prototype of all its successors as the ultimate authentication of the Sovereign’s will and authority down to that created the other year for King Charles III.

The article, which has photographs of the recovered seal, can be accessed at Lost seal of Edward the Confessor resurfaces after going missing for 40 years