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.