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XX. 



SOME MATEICES OF lEISH SEALS. 



By E. C. E. AEMSTEOXG. 



Plates XLIX, L, LI, LII. 



Read Jakvary 13. Published February 20, 1913. 



The Academy's collection contains many interesting matrices of Irish seals 

 ecclesiastical and secular. A number of the former have been previously 

 described in various publications, but it seemed desirable to include in 

 the present paper all the more important examples in order to make 

 the whole collection easily accessible to future workers. I am glad to be 

 able to publish among the early miscellaneous matrices specimens inscribed 

 with the names of Kavanagh, O'Eeilly, O'Brien, and Dougherty. The 

 illustrations are from photographs of wax impressions taken from the 

 matrices (seals), and, though less effective than drawings, are preferable, 

 as being scientifically more exact. 



The matrix of a seal is the piece of metal, ivory, or other material in 

 which the device is cut in intaglio; the term "seal" apphes to the impression 

 made from the matrix, in former times usually in wax, in modern times more 

 frequently by means of embossing the impression directly on to the document 

 by means of a spring press. 



The material usually employed for the matrices of seals was bronze, 

 but stone was sometimes used, as examples to be described will show. 

 Eoyal personages often had their seal-matrices made of gold, while silver 

 was common for matrices of corporations and persons of rank. Lead was 

 used by the poorer classes. The matrices of the modern bishops' seals 

 of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were usually made of brass. 



In the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the cutting of the 

 designs of matrices was carried to a high degree of skill and artistic merit. 

 During these periods a seal was an indispensable portion of a legal document, 

 and so continues in many transactions to the present day. Everyone knows 

 the small red discs of paper that are attached to transfers of stocks and shares, 

 degenerate, but no less real, representatives of the splendid wax impressions 



E.I. A. PEOC, VOL. XXX., SECT. C. [65] 



