To create a seal, an artist would first create a sketch of the image and inscription. Then a metalworker would create the seal dies, which are pieces of metal that bear the image of the obverse and the reverse of the seal. Once the seal dies were created, another individual would impress the images from the seal dies onto metal blanks. That would create the seal. Then the same or a different individual would attach the seal to a string and to a document. These craftspeople and document handlers were likely elite and connected to the government. 

Innate Conservatism of Seals

Similar designs on seals over time reveal the innate conservatism of an emperor's public-facing image. The seals of the first three emperors of the newly founded Latin empire in Constantinople have similar images and inscriptions. On the seals of both the first Latin emperor, Baldwin I (r. 1204-1205) and his brother Henry, on the obverse side, the emperor sits on a throne and holds religiously-symbolic objects, and on the reverse side, the emperor in his military guise rides horseback. Both seals contain Latin and Greek inscriptions. The final Latin emperor, Baldwin II, who ruled from 1228 until the empire's fall in 1261, also has a similar seal. All of these seals are rooted in the same religious and military imagery, which are foundational to the emperor's power. The conservatism of imagery on seals can be noted in many seals throughout history, including the Seal of Amalric, also in this exhibition.  

The most notable difference in Baldwin II's seal is the increasingly "Byzantinized" image of the emperor on the obverse side of the seal. When compared to the seals of his predecessors, the western throne has been traded for a traditional Byzantine throne. 

The seals of the Latin Emperor also remain consistent in using dual-language inscriptions in Greek and Latin, gesturing toward the two peoples living in the Latin empire, Greek-speaking members of the former Byzantine empire and Latin-speaking crusaders of the newly founded Latin empire. 

However, the inscriptions are also slightly different on the final emperor's (Baldwin II's) seal. The obverse side of his seal contains a nearly identical Latin inscription regarding the emperor's divine authority, but this time connecting him to the first Roman Emperor Augustus. The addition of Augustus in this inscription highlights the emperor's connection to the imperial Roman tradition.  Augustus was one of the most influential rulers of one of the greatest empires of all time. 

On the reverse side of Baldwin II's seal, the image of the emperor on horseback is retained. However, the inscription in Greek adds a Byzantine title. Both inscriptions in Greek and in Latin on Baldwin II's seal, then, add more layers of authority, from Romand and Byzantine traditions, in an attempt to prop up the failing Latin Empire.