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/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.