ance this sign
manual was actually traced by the monarch's own hand. At the most, the
earlier sovereigns appear to have drawn one or two strokes in their
monograms, which, so far, may be called their autographs. But in the later
period not even this was done; the monogram was entirely the work of the
scribe. (See DIPLOMATIC.)

The employment of marks or signs manual went out of general use after the
12th century, in the course of which the affixing or appending of seals
became the common method of executing deeds. But, as education became more
general and the practice of writing more widely diffused, the usage grew up
in the course of the 14th century of signing the name-signature as well as
of affixing the seal; and by the 15th century it had become established,
and it remains to the present time. Thus the _signum manuale_ had
disappeared, except among notaries; but the term survived, and by a natural
process it was transferred to the signature. In the present day it is used
to designate the "sign manual" or autograph signature of the sovereign.

The Anglo-Saxon kings of England did not sign their charters, their names
being invariably written by the official scribes. After the Norman
conquest, the sign manual, usually a cross, which sometimes accompanied the
name of the sovereign, may in some instances be autograph; but no royal
signature is to be found earlier than the reign of Richard II. Of the
signatures of this king there are two examples, of the years 1386 and 1389,
in the Public Record Office; and there is one, of 1397, in the British
Museum. Of his father, the Black Prince, there is in the Record Office a
motto-signature, _De par Homont_ (high courage), _Ich dene_, subscribed to
a writ of privy seal of 1370. The kings of the Lancastrian line were
apparently ready writers. Of the handwriting of both Henry IV. and Henry V.
there are specimens both in the Record Office and in the British Museum.
But by their time writing had become an ordinary accomplishment.

Apart from the autographs of sovereigns, those of famous men of the early
middle ages can hardly be said to exist, or, if they do exist, they are
difficult to identify. For example, there is a charter at Canterbury
bearing the statement that it was written by Dunstan; but, as there is a
duplicate in the British Museum with the same statement, it is probable
that both the one and the other are copies. The autograph MSS. of the
chronicles of Ordericus Vitali