Taking care of one’s image. Engraving, renewal and the destiny of seal matrices at the court of Blois-Champagne in the 12th and 13th centuries

Résumé En

Both a signature and a mark of self-image, the seal is a prestigious object, whose order, engraving, loss, renewal and fate upon the death of its owner or when it is decided to end its use are most often unknown, both for medieval and modern times. While the matrices themselves are no longer preserved and accounts make it possible to identify the engravers, to know the cost of manufacture and the description of the order are missing, the examination of many seal impressions of the counts and countesses of Blois-Champagne, kings and queens of Navarra from 1234 onwards, and those of their main dignitaries, printed at the bottom of the Champagne charters of the 11th-13th centuries, offers a series of indicators. Their stylistic comparison with other iconographic corpuses suggests artistic transfers and, by extension, the geographical origin of the engraving, the existence of a local workshop, a matrix offered as a gift in the context of a feudal minority or a wedding, or the reuse of a memorable object intended to enhance the virtues of the lineage. Studied with regard to the history of the county, these seal matrices testify of the strategies of representation implemented between Blois, Troyes and Pamplona, the political aspirations of the princes or, more simply, fashion phenomena. They contribute to our understanding of a court culture on the borders of the Kingdom of France.