s. In documents of minor importance it was
sometimes the custom to impress the seal or seals on one or more
strips of the parchment of the deed itself, cut, but not entirely
detached, from the lower margin, and left to hang loose. Besides waxen
impressions of seals, impressions in metal, bearing a device on both
faces, after the fashion of a coin, and suspended, were employed from
an early period. The most widely known instances are the _bullae_
attached to papal documents, generally of lead. The earliest surviving
papal _bulla_ is one of Pope Zacharias, A.D. 746, but earlier examples
are known from drawings. The papal _bulla_ was a disk of metal stamped
on both sides. From the time of Boniface V. to Leo IV., A.D. 617-855,
the name of the pontiff, in the genitive case, was impressed on the
obverse, and his title as pope on the reverse, e.g. _Bonifati/ papae_.
After that period, for some time, the name was inscribed in a circle
round a central ornament. Other variations followed; but at length in
the pontificate of Paschal II., A.D. 1099, the _bulla_ took the form
which it afterwards retained: on the obverse, the heads of the
apostles St Peter and St Paul; on the reverse, the pope's name, title
and number in succession. In the period of time between his election
and consecration, the pope made use of the half-bull, that is, the
obverse only was impressed. It should be mentioned that, in order to
conform to modern conditions and for convenience of despatch through
the post, Leo XII., in 1878, substituted for the leaden _bulla_ a red
ink stamp bearing the heads of the two apostles with the name of the
pope inscribed as a legend.

The Carolingian monarchs also used metal _bullae_. None of
Charlemagne's have survived, but there are still extant leaden
examples of Charles the Bald. The use of lead was not persisted in
either in the chancery of France or in that of Germany. Golden
_bullae_ were employed on special occasions by both popes and temporal
monarchs; for example, they were attached to the confirmations of the
elections of the emperors in the 12th and 13th centuries; the bull of
Leo X. conferring the title of Defender of the Faith on Henry VIII. in
1524, and the deed of alliance between Henry and Francis I. in 1527,
had golden _bullae_; and other examples could be cited. But lead has
always been the common metal to be thus employed. In the southern