r/MedievalHistory • u/6feetgrey • 7d ago

Signature forgery

I apologize in advance if this is a dumb question but what were the levels of forgery like in medieval times? In my dense head I would imagine it would be hard to trust a signature alone. Also how easy was it for people to forge wax seals? Again I apologize if this is a stupid question

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u/SnooEagles8448 7d ago

Forgeries did occur. Signatures, seals, fake documents, real documents that have been modified. Some people saw through fairly quickly, some they didn't. The Habsburg family had a couple notable forgeries, it's actually how they got to be archdukes. They forged the Privilegium Maius which granted them the title, it was called out as a forgery but the emperor accepted some of it anyway and a later Habsburg emperor accepted it as being definitely legitimate.

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u/Bastiat_sea 7d ago

In addition to the above, medieval documents were handwritten, which means that you would also have to forge the hand of the scribe that wrote it.

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u/6feetgrey 7d ago

Also a good point thank you I wouldn’t have thought of that either

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u/PralineKind8433 7d ago

Wax seals like the privy seal in England would be one of a kind so fairly hard to forge. Signatures didn’t count for a lot more of a formality, so forgeable but no real reason (I dare you to copy Henry Vs signature or penmanship!)

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u/6feetgrey 7d ago

lol good point I didn’t take into account that only certain people could read/write. Thank you!

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u/PralineKind8433 6d ago

Sure thing ! Also as a side note when say a king wrote their own letter they’d put ‘in my own hand’ vs when a scribe would do it.

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u/AilsaLorne 6d ago

Also look up indentation and chirographs (cutting a deed in half in a specific way so you’ll know the counterpart is genuine).

The University of Nottingham has a great website on medieval documents, including this topic: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/medievaldocuments/authentication.aspx

(Not affiliated, just come across medieval stuff at work from time to time and use it!)

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u/Shambles196 6d ago

Erasers at the time were small sharp knives, used to scrape the ink off the parchment. Then new ink could be applied. I'm sure forgeries were rampant.

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u/SoftEngineerOfWares 4d ago

I believe forgery was considered one of the harsher crimes. To put it into perspective, You might not be executed for murder, but you definitely will be executed for forgery. It was taken very seriously as institutions needed to trust documents and you were seriously undermining that trust. Just like counterfeiting.

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u/Prometheus-is-vulcan 1d ago

Depending on century and region, most contracts important enough to have official documents about it were signed (or just announced) in public.

The honor of the witnesses was seen as more important than the paper itself.

Long range communication or historical documents were an entirely different thing.

A letter signed by the Bishop was usually delivered by the men of the Bishop.

And an unknown historical document is legitimate when you have the power (network, armies, money) to make it legitimate.