"Propria manu cartam hanc roboro et confirmo". The hand in the signo rodado of queen Leonor Plantagenet

Abstract

This work elucidates in what way and with what intention Queen Leonor Plantagenet included her very own and singular signo rodado or diplomatic seal on two parchments of 1179. This decision to draw signos rodados on queenly documents was unprecedented in the Spanish kingdoms as in other European monarchies. Leonor was also the first queen consort to have a chancellery different and autonomous from that of the king. This study discerns the faculty of political representation performed by the signo rodado used by Leonor: a hand located in the centre of a circle and surrounded by the textual title of queen of Toledo and Castile. What does this hand mean and represent? What message and personal resemblance did Leonor’s chancellery try to project concerning her power and authority in issuing these documents? Our historical and artistic analysis suggests a proposal for understanding the corroborative nature of the signo rodado, the political and symbolic intentions, as well as the visual rhetoric that converged into the making of the manus, a political image in the authorisation of documents which would respond to four dimensions and meanings of the exercise of royal power: literal (“manuscript”), authority (“mandate”), economic (“maintenance”) and acclaiming (“manifestation”).