UDC
929.713

THE SEAL IN CULTURE OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER (THE END OF XII - THE BEGINNING OF XIV CENTURIES)

Published in Bulletin of Nizhnevartovsk State University · Pages 67–75 · Rubric: Articles
Received: 06.06.2017 Accepted: 15.06.2017 Published: 25.06.2017 Language of publication: RUS
Authors
This paper is about seals using in the Teutonic Order in a wide historical and cultural context, from their appearance in a corporation chanceries until transfer of the central administration in Marienburg (1309) and the followed administrative transformations. The paper analyzes a wide range of the problems connected to origin, use and perception of a sigillographic monuments. Appearance of the seals was caused by practical need of documents authentication in connection with growth of Order’s possession. It is determined that corporate Statutes regulated some legal aspects of their using only: designation of a group of people having the right to use it, and also the special significance given to the seals of the Grand master and the Сonvent as carriers of the higher authority. The hypothesis about a possible influence on a choice of seal images by the Order chaplains that managed chanceries is stated. The short comparative analysis of external characteristics of the seals in different regions of Order activity with other military orders, first of all an Order of Saint John, showed dominance of the wax and anonymous seals in particular. Here is shown the informative potential of the sigillographic monuments as important and many-sided historical source. First of all it concerns a role of the seals as a most important tool of an official self-representation of the Teutonic Order’s administration in the 13th century and emblematic system. It is confirmed by the number of the remained monuments and richness of their iconography.
sfragistika, Nemeckiy orden, istoriya prava, diplomatika, samoreprezentaciya, identichnost'