A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins (Vol. 1&2). Johann Beckmann

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СКАЧАТЬ letters in Asia are sealed: and he showed on the other hand that the testimony brought by the accuser was false, because it was sealed with wax, and for that reason could not have come from Asia350. The scholiast Servius relates, that a sibyl received a promise from Apollo, that she should live as long as she did not see the earth of the island Erythræa where she resided; that she therefore quitted the place, and retired to Cumæ, where she became old and decrepid; but that having received a letter sealed with Erythræan earth (creta), when she saw the seal she instantly expired351.

No one however will suppose that this earth was the same as that to which we at present give the name of creta, chalk; for if it was a natural earth it must have been of that kind called potters’ clay, as that clay is capable of receiving an impression and of retaining it after it is hardened by drying. That the Romans, under the indefinite name of creta, often understood a kind of potters’ earth, can be proved by many passages of their writers. Columella speaks of a kind of chalk of which wine-jars and dishes were made352. Virgil calls it tough353; and the ancient writers on agriculture give the same name to marl which was employed to manure land354. Notwithstanding all these authorities, I do not clearly comprehend how letters could be sealed with potters’ clay, as it does not adhere with sufficient force either to linen, of which in ancient times the covers of letters were made, or to parchment; as it must be laid on very thick to have a distinct impression; as it is long in drying, and is again easily softened by moisture; and, at any rate, if conveyed by post at present, it would be crumbled into dust in going only from Hamburg to Altona. I can readily believe that the Roman messengers employed more skill and attention to preserve the letters committed to their care than are employed by our postmen; but the distance from Asia to Rome is much greater than that from Hamburg to Altona.

But may there not be as little foundation for the ancient expression creta Asiatica, Asiatic earth, as for the modern expression, cera Hispanica, Spanish wax? May not the former have signified a kind of coarse artificial cement? These questions might be answered by those who have had an opportunity of examining or only seeing the sigilla cretacea in collections of antiquities. We are assured that such are still preserved; at least we find in Ficoroni355 the representation of six impressions which, as he tells us, consisted of that earth. In that author however I find nothing to clear up my doubts; he says only that some of these seals were white; others of a gray colour, like ashes; others red, and others brown. They seem all to have been enclosed in leaden cases. Could it be proved that each letter was wrapped round with a thread, and that the thread, as in the seals affixed to diplomas, was drawn through the covering of the seal, the difficulty which I think occurs in the use of these earths, as mentioned by the ancients, would entirely disappear356. It seems to me remarkable that neither Theophrastus nor Pliny says anything of the Asiatic creta, or speaks at all of sealing-earth; though they have carefully enumerated all those kinds of earth which were worth notice on account of any use.

      In Europe, as far as I know, wax has been everywhere used for sealing since the earliest ages. Writers on diplomatics, however, are not agreed whether yellow or white wax was first employed; but it appears that the former, on account of its low price, must have been first and principally used, at least by private persons. It is probable also, that the seals of diplomas were more durable when they consisted of yellow wax; for it is certain that white wax is rendered more brittle and much less durable by the process of bleaching. Many seals also may at present be considered white which were at first yellow; for not only does wax highly bleached resume in time a dirty yellow colour, but yellow wax also in the course of years loses so much of its colour as to become almost like white wax. This perhaps may account for the oldest seals appearing to be of white, and the more modern of yellow wax. These however are conjectures which I submit with deference to the determination of those versed in diplomatics.

In the course of time wax was coloured red; and a good deal later, at least in Germany, but not before the fourteenth century, it was coloured green, and sometimes black. I find it remarked that blue wax never appears on diplomas; and I may indeed say it is impossible it should appear, for the art of giving a blue colour to wax has never yet been discovered; and in old books, such as that of Wecker, we find no receipt for that purpose. Later authors have pretended to give directions how to communicate that colour to wax, but they are altogether false; for vegetable dyes when united with wax become greenish, so that the wax almost resembles the hip-stone; and earthy colours do not combine with it, but in melting fall again to the bottom. A seal of blue wax, not coloured blue merely on the outer surface, would be as great a rarity in the arts as in diplomatics, and would afford matter of speculation for our chemists; but I can give them no hopes that such a thing can ever be produced357. The emperor Charles V. in the year 1524 granted to Dr. Stockamar of Nuremberg, the privilege of using blue wax in seals;—a favour like that conferred in 1704 on the manufactories in the principality of Halberstadt and the county of Reinstein, to make indigo from minerals. It was certainly as difficult for the doctor to find blue wax for seals as for the proprietors of these manufactories to discover indigo in the earth358.

Much later are impressions made on paste or dough, which perhaps could not be employed on the ancient parchment or the linen covers of letters, though in Pliny’s time the paper then in use was joined together with flour paste359. Proper diplomas were never sealed with wafers; and in the matchless diplomatic collection of H. Gatterer there are no wafer-seals much above two hundred years old. From that collection I have now in my possession one of these seals, around the impression of which is the following inscription, Secretum civium in Ulma, 1474; but it is only a new copy of a very old impression. Kings, however, before the invention of sealing-wax, were accustomed to seal their letters with this paste360.

Heineccius and others relate that maltha also was employed for seals. This word signifies a kind of cement, formed chiefly of inflammable substances, and used to make reservoirs, pipes, &c. water-tight. Directions how to prepare it may be found in the writers on agriculture, Pliny, Festus and others. The latter tells how to make it of a composition of pitch and wax361: but neither in that author nor in any other have I found proofs that letters were sealed with it, or that seals of it were affixed to diplomas: for the words of Pollux, “cera qua tabella judicum obliniebatur362,” will admit of a different explanation. If maltha has been in reality used for seals, that mixture may be considered as the first or oldest sealing-wax, as what of it is still preserved has been composed of resinous substances.

Some writers assert363, upon the authority of Lebeuf364, that sealing-wax was invented about the year 1640 by a Frenchman named Rousseau; but that author refers his readers to Papillon365, who refers again to Pomet366, so that the last appears to be the first person who broached that opinion. According to his account, Francis Rousseau, born not far from Auxerre, and who travelled a long time in Persia, Pegu and other parts of the East Indies, and in 1692 resided in St. Domingo, was the inventor of sealing-wax. Having, while he lived at Paris as a merchant, during the latter years of the reign of Louis XIII., who died in 1643, lost all his property СКАЧАТЬ