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Gold seals
Gold seals
Golden bulls, called “chrysobulls”, were issued by the Byzantine Empire but used on rare occasions in the West. These gold seals were attached to authenticate solemn bulls emanated by the most important royal chanceries in very particular diplomatic circumstances. The Carolingian emperors, the Norman kings of Sicily, the House of Anjou-Naples, the kings of Aragon, the kings of Hungary, as well as the papal and the Venetian chanceries issued them sporadically. According to some authors, the high cost of gold limited the number to not more than a hundred or so bulls conserved in European archives. It is noteworthy that the owners of gold seals often commissioned renowned goldsmiths to create the matrices and the same seals. Hence, they became real and proper works of art fashioned out of pure gold or layers of gold to which copper was sometimes added. The use of gold seals for documents was particular while the use of silver seals was limited, and very rare cases have been documented.
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