Medieval royal portraits: how kings were shown on seals, tombs and panels

Medieval kings and queens were pictured long before anyone painted a portrait to hang on a wall. They appeared on wax seals, on the lids of their tombs, in the pages of books and on small painted altarpieces. Many of these images show a crowned figure on a throne or a knight on a horse, with a name or a coat of arms to say who it is. This page explains each kind of image, how to read it, and how the first true likenesses of European rulers appeared in the 1300s and 1400s. It covers the period before the Renaissance, which has its own page on Renaissance and Tudor portraits, and it is part of the guide to European royal portraits.

Seals: the king in two poses

A seal is a design pressed into wax from a carved metal stamp. The National Archives in London explains that seals often carried their owner's portrait or coat of arms and were used to approve documents such as charters and letters, in much the same way we use signatures today. The Archives holds over a quarter of a million seals, from the 11th to the 20th century.

The most important seal was the great seal. The National Archives says every sovereign of England since Edward the Confessor has used a large, double-sided great seal. It nearly always shows the ruler on one side enthroned, "in majesty", usually holding a sceptre, a sword or an orb, and on the other side on horseback, in the pose the Archives calls equestrian. The Archives lists a great seal of Richard I from 1189 among its holdings.

King's College, Cambridge, which keeps seals in its own archive, describes the same two faces. On one side the king rides with a drawn sword and a shield bearing the royal arms. On the other he sits on the throne with the crown and sceptre.

A seal also told you whose it was in words. The National Archives says the name and title of the owner ran around the edge, usually beginning with sigillum, Latin for "seal of", much like the words on a coin. These two designs, the ruler on the throne and the ruler on a horse, came back again and again in later painted portraits. The page on royal portrait poses follows them into the 1600s and 1700s.

Books for the coronation

Coronations produced their own images. Westminster Abbey says crowns have appeared in coronations for over 1,000 years and are shown in manuscripts from the 10th century onwards. It says the Liber Regalis, a Latin book that brought together the order of the English coronation service, was produced in 1390, by the Abbey's approximate dating. The Abbey adds that the book is said to have been written for the coronation of Anne of Bohemia, Richard II's first queen, and that it contains three pictures of coronation scenes, the king alone, the queen alone and the two together, and one of a royal funeral.

Tomb effigies

An effigy is a full-size figure of a dead person that lies on top of the tomb. The Church Monuments Society says the most prestigious type of medieval tomb had an effigy cast in gilded copper alloy, and that such effigies were made across Europe, from Denmark to Portugal. Most of those made in England were destroyed in later religious and civil conflicts, but a handful survive.

One of them belongs to Edward, the Black Prince, eldest son of Edward III, in Canterbury Cathedral. The society says the prince set out the form of his monument in his will. He is shown as an adult crown prince in armour, lying with his head on his helmet, his hands in prayer and his feet on a leopard. Over his armour he wears a tight coat showing his coat of arms.

Westminster Abbey holds the double tomb of Richard II and his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, made between 1396 and 1399. The Abbey says it was the first double royal tomb, and that it cost £933, 6 shillings and 8 pence. The gilt bronze effigies were stamped all over with royal badges. Richard asked for the two figures to hold hands, though the hands have since broken off. The Abbey says both effigies "are undoubtedly portraits": the king has the same short, wispy beard as in his painted portrait.

The first painted likenesses

Painted portraits of single rulers appear in the 1300s. The Louvre in Paris holds a small portrait of King John II of France, called Jean le Bon, by an unknown Parisian painter. The museum dates it to 1355 to 1360. It is painted in tempera, a paint made with egg, on a gold background, and measures 60 by 45 centimetres. The king is shown in strict side view with long hair and no crown. Above his head, the words "Jehan roy de France" (John, king of France) run across the gold.

In England, the earliest known portrait of a monarch is at Westminster Abbey. The Abbey dates this wooden panel of Richard II to the 1390s and gives its size as 213.5 by 110 centimetres. The king sits in the Coronation Chair wearing coronation robes and holding the orb and sceptre. The Abbey says the court painter André Beauneveu has been suggested as the artist. The panel first hung beside the choir stalls, and the Abbey says it was placed there to represent the king.

The panel has changed over time. The Abbey says that during a restoration in 1866, the patterned gilt background and the raised decoration on the crown, orb and sceptre were removed, and only a few patches survive.

The Wilton Diptych: a king among saints

A detailed painted image of a medieval English king survives in the Wilton Diptych in the National Gallery in London. A diptych is a painting on two hinged panels that fold shut like a book. The gallery dates this one to 1395 to 1399, says it was made for Richard II's private prayers, and calls it one of a handful of English panel paintings to survive from the Middle Ages.

On the inside, the young king kneels, shown in profile, while three saints present him to the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. Two of the saints, Edmund and Edward the Confessor, were English kings, and the gallery says they were central to Richard's idea of sacred kingship. An angel holds a white banner with a red cross, and on top of its pole sits a tiny orb showing an island with trees and a white tower, which stands for England.

The picture is full of personal signs. Richard wears a jewel in the shape of a white hart, a white stag, which was his own badge, and a collar of gold broomcods, the seed pods of the broom plant. The gallery explains that broom is planta genista in Latin, a play on his family name, Plantagenet. The angels wear white hart badges too, to show they are his supporters. On the outside, the English royal arms are joined with those of Edward the Confessor.

The gallery also points out a puzzle. Richard appears as a beardless youth, although the diptych dates from the years when he was a grown man. Technical analysis shows that his head was painted in late. The gallery asks whether he is shown as he looked when he was crowned at the age of ten.

Coats of arms: identity before likeness

The Heraldry Society says people have long wanted to identify themselves by a personal sign, and that these signs first appeared as impressions on seals, then moved to battle shields and from there to the cloth coats worn over armour, which may be where the phrase "coat of arms" comes from. It says the first formal appearance of heraldry as we know it came in 1128, when Henry I of England gave a shield to Geoffrey of Anjou at his knighting. The Third Crusade of 1189 spread the practice across Europe, and in 1484 Richard III founded the College of Arms to regulate it.

What a medieval knight wore over his armour, and how the surcoat carried his arms, is explained in what a medieval knight wore. For the crown, orb and sceptre in later portraits, see symbols of royal power.

Fur and cloth at the medieval court

The fur in these images reflects real spending at court. A history of the English fur trade, published by the London Record Society, says 1,634 ermine skins were bought for Richard II between 1392 and 1394, along with an average of over 100,000 squirrel skins a year. The ermine lining of Richard's robe in the Westminster portrait was a real luxury of his court.

Toward the modern portrait

By the 1430s, painters in Flanders were making portraits of individual people with great precision. The National Gallery's Portrait of a Man by Jan van Eyck is signed and dated 10 October 1432. The unknown sitter holds a scroll and wears a green headdress called a chaperon and a red robe trimmed with brown fur. Carved into a stone ledge in front of him are the French words "Léal Souvenir", meaning loyal remembrance. The gallery says this might mean the picture is a good likeness or a keepsake.

The Medieval Knight style

Purrealism's Medieval Knight style is one of its six European styles. You can choose it in the portrait studio with one photo of your pet of up to 5 MB. The gallery shows finished examples in five of the European styles, which helps you compare the look of each before you decide.