The means by which property has been identified, and denoted by some
distinctive mark, at various periods, present us with some curious
customs.
In England, individual marks were in use from the fourteenth to the
middle of the seventeenth centuries, probably much earlier; and when a
yeoman affixed his mark to a deed, he drew a _signum_, well known to his
neighbours, by which his land, his cattle, and sheep, his agricultural
implements, and even his ducks, were identified. In the 25th year of
Queen Elizabeth, a jury at Seaford, in Sussex, convicted John Comber
"for markyng of three ducks of Edwd Warwickes and two ducks of Symon
Brighte with his own marke, and cutting owt theire markes." Cows and
oxen were marked on the near horn. When cattle in bodies of many
hundreds ranged over extensive commons, as was formerly the case, the
use of marks for identification was more indispensable than at present.
Our swans retain their marks to the present day. In Ditmarsh and Denmark
the owner's mark was cut in stone over the principal door of the house;
it designated not only his land and cattle, but his stall in the church,
and his grave when he was no more. At Witney, Oxon, a woolstapler's mark
may be seen so incised on a house, with the date 1564; and numerous
merchants' marks are at Norwich and Yarmouth. At Holstein, within the
memory of man, the beams of the cottages of the bond-servants were
incised with the marks of their masters. A pastor, writing from Angeln,
says, "The hides had their marks, which served instead of the names of
their owners." In the island of Föhr, a little to the north of Ditmarsh,
the mark, cut on a wooden ticket, is always sold with the house; and it
is cut in stone over the door; and the same custom is still in use in
Schleswig and Holstein. In the Tyrolese Alps, at the present day, the
cattle that are driven out to pasturage are marked on the horn with the
mark of their owner's land. Marks for cattle are also used in
Switzerland, in the Bavarian Alps, and in some parts of Austria.
These house-marks are connected with merchants' and tradesmen's marks,
and also with stonemasons' marks, all of which formed a lower kind of
heraldry for those not entitled to the bearings of the noble; for, on
old houses at Erfurt, double shields, with the marks of the families of
husband and wife, are found.
Many of the marks found on old pictures are true house-marks, and not
alphabetical monograms. A painting by Wouvermans or Lingelback, in the
writer's possession, bears the mark known as the crane's foot. Michelsen
considers armorial bearings to have been originally little more than
decorated marks, and to have been engrafted, as it were, upon the
system: indeed, he asserts that the arms of Pope Hadrian VI., a
Netherlander, were framed from house-marks. Some knightly families in
Schleswig still retain their house-marks on their coat-of-arms: for
instance, the Von Gogerns bear the kettle-hanger, or pot-hook; the Von
Sesserns, in 1548, bore the same, which occurred on their family tomb,
_anno_ 1309. The earliest marks were supposed to represent the most
indispensable agricultural implements, as a spade, a plough, a scythe, a
sickle, a dung-hook, the tyres of a barrow; also, anchors, stars, &c.
There was, also, often a supposed connexion between the figurative name
of a house and its owner's mark, which was a representation of the
object, more or less exact. Michelsen considers that the names and signs
of inns are but remnants of the once universal and necessary custom of
giving figurative names to houses, which the modern numbers have
superseded.
Prof. Michelsen shows that the _cultellum_, which was given by the
Franks, Goths, and Germans, in the ninth and tenth centuries, on the
transfer of land, with the _signum_ cut on a piece of wood, was
originally intended for notching the mark on the wood, in the same
manner as the inkstand and pen were lifted up with the chart, as symbols
of a transfer of land. Among the archives of Nôtre Dame, at Paris, is
preserved a pointed pocket-knife of the eleventh century, on the ivory
handle of which is engraved the record of a gift of land; and at the
same place is preserved a piece of wood, of the ninth century, six
inches long and one inch square, attached to a diploma, as was then the
custom. A similar knife, with an ivory handle, is still preserved,
attached to a charter of Trinity College, Cambridge.
The surrender of copyholds by the rod or glove, and occasionally by a
straw, or rush (whence the word "stipulation," from _stipula_, straw),
is well known in England; and in the manor of Paris Garden, Surrey, an
ebony rod is preserved with a silver head, on which are engraved the
royal arms, with E. R. and a crown, and an inscription purporting that
it is kept for the surrender of copyholds of the manor. The inscribed
sticks, mentioned in Ezekiel xxxv. 16, appear to relate to this ancient
mode of conveyancing.