STREDOVEKÉ OPISY PEČATÍ V PÍSOMNÝCH PRAMEŇOCH UHORSKEJ PROVENIENCIE

During the Middle Ages, the seal became an irreplaceable part of legal documents, especially charters. Attaching the seal to a document, its owner expressed his agreement with its content. At the same time, the seal served as the primary guarantor of its genuineness and authenticity. The importance of the seal for medieval society is evident in its reflection in various written sources of the period. In a thorough sphragistic research, it is impossible to ignore the context in which the seal is mentioned in these written sources. Closely related is also the structure of descriptions of seals in these mentions. The presented study focuses on medieval sources of Hungarian provenance. Attention is paid to information about seals in corroboration and confirmation formulas of charters, royal privileges by which monarchs granted seals, as well as sources of ecclesiastical and secular customary law (statutes of chapters, Tripartitum). Given that this matter has not received extensive attention so far, it is necessary to consider the presented study as an introductory probe into the matter.