[SCA-BMDL] Period Mercenary Contracts

[Broom]

The best info I can offer you is mere surmisal & background history of
contracts, but here goes:

They almost certainly would have been written up as indentured
contracts; that is: contracts written in duplicate or triplicate on a
single sheet, with an oversized word ("C H I R O G R A P H I A") or
design printed across the margins in between the copies. Then, after
all copies were "signed" (seals attached), a knife was used to cut
across the margins with a wavy or sawtoothed (indented) line. The
matchup of the copies would prove their authenticity.

The contracts started out being duplicates, until the court system
realized that, while this would allow them to detect a faked version,
it wouldn't determine /which/ copy was the fake. Thus, the third copy
was made, and kept in a neutral location (the chancery clerk's office,
AFAIK).

Thus began the history of the Chancery Clerk as the great recorder of
civil events in Britain.

And from there, I commend you to look through the Chancery Rolls, some
of which are available online, though I don't recall ever reading any
dealing with troop purchase in my research of them.

Finally, as for the seals: signatures as we know them today were
virtually unheard of until late in our period. If an individual did
not have a personal seal, he (or in rare instances, she*) might sign
by drawing a cross on the contract in the presence of witnesses.

Predictably, the faith of legal signatories was pretty much a foregone
conclusion; I'm not sure how Jews entering contracts with Gentiles in
period would have signed civil contracts. However, seals were not
expensive; generic seal matrices awaiting only the incisement of the
purchaser's first name were available in the markets.

* To be capable of representing oneself in a legal court as a woman,
she first had to be declared a femme sole - a single woman, literally.
Otherwise, she was either under the legal guardianship of her husband,
or if unmarried, her father.

I know this isn't directly an answer to your question, but I hope some
of it is useful.

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