Signatures of Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519) in the Archives of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of sciences

Abstract

The present study of the signatures of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519) is based on the analysis of authentic charters and of cial letters preserved the Archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Along with the imperial seal, the signatures of the Chancellor, or leading secretaries, as well as the established certi cation formulas of the chancery, the signature of the will-maker or sender served in the early modern period the most important means of certifying the authenticity of a document issued from the Habsburg Imperial Chancery. According to traditional practice, the predecessors Maximilian as King and later as Emperor did not use the inscription of a personal name as a signature, but a handwritten conventional sign or a verbal certi cation formula. Having become Duke of Burgundy in 1477, Maximilian of Habsburg, perhaps under the in uence of the more advanced Burgundian Chancery tradition, began to use a nominal signature in the form of a proper name with a characteristic long horizontal stroke under it. The collection of the Archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of History contains two letters with rare early examples of this signature. But along with it, the so-called small signature of the emperor - an impersonal phrase per regem per se - is more widespread in Maximilian's documents. Due to the brevity and convenience of writing, the small signature was often imitated by secretaries or stamped with the consent of the monarch. The name of Maximilian I in the Imperial Chancery practice is associated with the transition from the design of a signature in the form of a sign to the writing of a personal name. This transition was inconsistent and was characterized by the coexistence of Maximilian's personal nominal signature and an impersonal sign per regem per se. All subsequent emperors, starting with Charles V, already used signatures in the form of a personal name