Reflectance Transformation Imaging and the Future of Medieval Sigillography

Abstract

Abstract In the Middle Ages, people used seals to authenticate records, but those seals preserve words and images used by many different social groups, from the nobility to the peasantry, as well as both men and women. They thus provide an opportunity to explore the ideas, values, and beliefs of a wide range of people. Consequently, seals are valued by a range of scholars, including historians, art‐historians, and archeologists, as well as those interested in heraldry, genealogy, and local history. Seals are an important part of the medieval legacy, but they are also precious and fragile objects, and therefore scholars as well as members of the public generally have little personal experience with them. As a result, seals remain little known, but that could change, thanks to novel forms of digital imaging such as Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI).

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