Personal marks in Page 1

Personal marks in NORWAY - AN OVERVIEW -

By Hans Cappelen (, 2001)

1 Introduction

We have a rich treasure of our thousands of old personal marks. They have connections back to our oldest written forms, they were associated with hunting and animal husbandry, and they were with the inheritance and ownership. personal mark has acquired its highly stylized figures from distant lands and ancient symbols; they can testify religion, magic and more. The individual personal marks can indeed have an extremely modest appearance, but most personal mark is composed of lines that have gradually evolved from certain basic shapes. particularly when we look at more personal marks together, we can draw long lines through the centuries, across borders and completely in Norwegian urban and rural communities.

I write here mostly on the basis of personal marks in three books: the first is the "Norwegian Seal of Quality" which is part bumerkesegl Middle Ages, so we Strømmes book with personal marks from Sunnmøre. Streaming is impressive enough delineated and recorded details of approx. 7500 personal marks in Sunnmøre from time approx. 1500-1800, so his book is a rich source for the study of Norwegian personal marks. Last is the Koren Wiberg who wrote about. 110 personal marks from Bryggen in . Additional literature which I founded, is Wallem general article from 1903 about personal marks, some recent articles by Hans Krag, the important work of the Danish researcher Allan Tonnesen and several articles in Cultural Encyclopedia of Medieval bl. A. first archivist Hallvard Trætteberg and Swedish statsheraldikeren Gunnar Scheffer.

Bumerkeillustrasjonene below is from: personal marks cheeks. Facilitated by Anders J. Moen and taken from Albert Joleiks book "The book of Flora". ( www.karmotor.no / flora-school office / Subject Resources / samf_fag / personal marks / index.htm.htm )

The Stavang 1654

An old and typical personal mark from a Norwegian village, but it could also

Personal marks in Norway Page 2 have been from a city and from elsewhere in Northern Europe!

Contents 1 Introduction 2 What is personal marks 3 personal marks used as characteristic 4 Variations, equality and personal change 5 Basic Forms and other shapes as personal marks 6 Several basic shapes and shape names 7 Some topics for research 8 Selected literature on personal marks

Not personal marks: government agency brand with royal crown, trademark and an information notice for the eatery. Last: weapon Valer municipality. It is copied from the shield of the genus Bolts weapons from the Middle Ages.

2 What is personal marks

There is some disagreement about how best to define what is personal marks. I decide to start with a brief and functional characteristics of personal marks. My purpose is to get the key characteristics of the most personal mark.

A personal mark is a mark that consists of simple strokes without specific colors.

With this brief definition I share the key characteristics of the two: (1) personal mark function characteristics and (2) personal marks look. It is these two characteristics that I write mostly about below. fact that many of the modern brands, "logos", falls under the definition,'s okay.

Today logos for Planning and Building Services in Oslo and the Norwegian Shipowners' Association

Personal marks in Norway Page 3

Who is it who used personal marks which characteristics? Anyway farmers on the west coast has the largest number of personal marks which are printed and published in Norway. , we can fairly safely assume that farmers elsewhere around the country spent as much personal marks. Moreover, the personal marks used by traders, artisans and other citizens both at Bryggen in Bergen and other Norwegian cities. , we have 1600's also personal marks written by hand on documents from miners in Røros. Rather it is from government officials, nobles, clergy and Royal just kept quite a few personal marks, such as the hand-drawn marks to the emperor Charlemagne and the Norwegian King Haakon 5th city Elsinore in have had their personal mark for marking of animals, and in German areas are personal marks for both cities and institutions such as churches and hospitals. Throughout Europe we can find bystempler on metal; they are close personal marks because they consist of simple lines and characterize the cities where they were produced.

Why do we have so many personal marks of Norwegian farmers? There must be about a few tens of thousands over the years. despite the fact that the need was hardly so great to mark objects or to identify themselves using characteristics around the Norwegian farms in earlier times. use of letters and other written documents were well not particularly extensive prior into more modern times. Disposal of real estate and other legal transactions could in earlier times given orally by witnesses and the council.

Nevertheless, farmers need personal characteristics, especially in connection with the seals used much like the signatures these days. The farmers would in 1591 and 1610 put their seal on the powers which they gave their delegates to the so-called "kongehyllingene". A more important use of the seal was when farmers served as jurors , ie judges on things, to attest documents, allocating taxation mm farmers had to attend and participate as jurors under things collections. This service was a duty and went round among farmers. Everyone was perhaps not as happy to spend their time on this. "The King" (ie central government in Copenhagen) had at least several times chastise jurors and enforce duties.

From the 1500s became obligatory that all jurors should have signets to seal documents. Sometimes sealing occurred incorrectly, that when jurors sealed without knowing what the verdict was all about, or sealed with another man's signet. both 1568 and later therefore mandatory to jurors to "defend sit Indsegl" and it was punishment for abusing seal to verify lies, false or else that was contrary to law. seal was also used by farmers when they confirmed documents attachments thereto such as bilge and fogderegnskaper, mortgage and property books or applications to the king, and later on the written seams for disposal of real property.

As written documents became more common, could those who had their own signets and seals, as well sign with hand-drawn personal marks. This is expressly stated in King Christian 5s Norwegian Act of 1687 in the provision 1-24-5

Personal marks in Norway Page 4 (signature on petitions to king) and 5-1-7 (signature of contracts). Signe seats were thus no longer as important to these types of documents.

The use of seals with personal marks gradually took the final out of the 1800's, when people were content with only the signatures and seals no longer had any legal significance by the issuance of documents.

Where did the word personal mark from? term "brand" can mean so much and recur again and again in Norwegian and lovskrifter Middle Ages. word bomerke or "boemerke" supposedly comes from Denmark. "Bomerke" is used at least in Kristian 5s Norwegian Act from 1687. Norway In today's word bomerke been completely supplanted by personal mark. word with the letter u, we find hardly written records older than the 1700s. Famous Norwegian dialect forms include "Bumærkje" and "Bumark".

In Denmark and , the word "bomerke" (with multiple names) known from 1400 - and 1500 numbers, but not before. During the Icelandic legal code, from the Middle Ages we find the word "einkunn" brand used as the characteristics of marking animals, so the word has probably been used in Norway.

Should we have different designations for personal brands and proprietary notices ? Some believe that,