ON SOME ANCIENT BURTON MANUSCRIPTS. gl 
seal,” that are called ‘‘ deeds.” All these old documents, with the 
exception of two, have parchment labels attached to them, and on 
eight of the labels the seals are still to be seen, in a more or less 
perfect state of preservation. On two of the labels there are no 
seals —time, or other means, having no doubt worn them off. On 
one document there is the incision in the parchment showing 
where the label was inserted, but the label has gone ; and on the 
remaining one document there is no external sign or trace of a 
label, but the contents of the document show that it originally had 
a seal attached to it. 
When you come to inspect these deeds, you will, I daresay, 
remark that none of them are signed. That is so. None of these 
deeds are signed either by grantor or witnesses. The period to 
which the greater part of these documents belong was a time when, 
it may be said, it was the mark of a gentleman not to be able to 
sign his name, and so it was not then necessary that a deed should 
be signed by anyone. There were then two requisite formalities 
necessary to the execution ofa deed—namely, sealing and delivery. 
In the days of which I am speaking, every person who owned 
property had a distinctive seal of his own. It was competent, I 
presume, for anyone to put whatever device he chose on his seal, 
provided, of course, it was a distinctive device. Ido not suppose 
the luxury of a registration office for seals had been thought of in 
those days. No doubt the knowledge of the seals of private 
persons was gained by experience and going about in the world 
only. When a person executed a deed, then, in the middle ages, he 
affixed to it an impression in sealing wax of his own private seal, 
and delivered the deed -to the grantee, relessee, or whatever the 
other party might be, but he did not sign the deed. Neither did 
the witnesses seal or signit. It is still, I believe, the theory of the 
law that it is not necessary to sign a deed even now-a-days in 
order to complete its execution. But I should be very sorry to 
advise anyone not to sign a deed now. Since writing is a 
general accomplishment, and since it is found as a matter of 
“experience that no two persons’ handwriting is exactly similar 
the name of the maker of the deed signed by him is found to 
