Srednjovjekovni pečat grada Skradina
A medieval seal of the city of Skradin

Author(s): Ante Birin
Subject(s): Cultural history, Local History / Microhistory, 6th to 12th Centuries, 13th to 14th Centuries
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: sphragistics; Middle Ages; seal; Skradin;
Summary/Abstract: Use of the seals, which in the Middle Ages (as the prerogative of the sovereign power) was almost exclusively associated with the person of ruler, will experience in the West a general use, due to the weakening of the central government in favor of local ones. It will diffuse and spread among other social classes (middling and lower nobility and bourgeoisie) as well as various religious and secular institutions (such as chapters, monasteries, cities, universities and guilds). When it comes to medieval cities, use of seals have spread most intensively in Italian cities from the area of northern and central part of the Apennine peninsula, which managed, during the 12th century, to emancipate from the imperial government and to form themselves as an autonomous city municipalities entering so in the sphere of public law. In the area of Croatian lands, the town seals, not incidentally, appear in the towns on the east coast of Adriatic, which in the period from the 12th to the 14th century organized themselves as communal societies. One of the known communal seals is that of Skradin, whose description is preserved in a transcript of a document dated April 9th, 1294. There is also an extant fragment of the seal on the document from 1303. Although these data was not unknown to the scholarly public, the seal of Skradin, with which this article deals, has not been the subject of interest of Croatian historiography or sphragistics.

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