Description
Origins
The use of an official seal to authenticate government documents has its origins in antiquity and was preserved through the centuries when many people could not read or were unable to write. A unique and recognized symbol for the ruler served as the authenticating identification of the official document to which it was affixed. Many individual people also used seals to authenticate their private papers, and business firms also employed seals on their documents.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the official seal of the colony of Virginia changed each time a new monarch ascended the throne, except during the years between 1652 and 1660 when Parliament ruled without a king, and it is not known for certain whether colonial officials used a seal at all. Otherwise, each of the colonial seals contained the arms of the reigning king of England (between 1702 and 1714 the arms of Queen Anne) and, until 1707, the words, "En Dat Virginia Quintam" (also spelled "Quintum"), meaning that Virginia was the fifth realm of the Crown. The kings and queens of England at that time also claimed the thrones of Scotland, Ireland, and (since the Norman Conquest) France. Virginia was therefore the fifth of the Crown's domains. Following the Acts of Union in 1707 that combined the kingdoms of England and Scotland into the kingdom Great Britain, the phrase was changed to "En Dat Virginia Quartam," Virginia then being the fourth of the Crown's four realms.
Adoption and Change
An act of assembly adopted in 1873 directed that new copies of the seal, a greater one and a lesser one, be struck and that the words "Liberty and Union" not appear on either side of either seal. In 1903 the General Assembly passed another law concerning the seal, in essentially the same language that the Convention of 1776 had adopted (but incorporating the 1779 replacement of the words "Deus nobis haec otia fecit" with "Perserverando"), and subsequent acts of 1950, 1966, and 2005 continued to describe the seal in the same manner, specifying the sizes of the great and lesser seals, and regulating their use.
The emblem on the obverse of the seal with the motto Sic Semper Tyrannis also appeared early in the nineteenth century on the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia, although the General Assembly never formally authorized or approved a design for a state flag. The flag was authorized instead by the Virginia Convention of 1861, which adopted an ordinance on April 30 that specified that the design on the obverse of the state seal appear against a background of deep blue and thereafter be the official design for the state flag.
Time Line
-
July 5, 1776 - The Virginia Convention adopts an ordinance to create a new seal for the independent Commonwealth of Virginia.
-
1779 - The General Assembly orders a change made to the state seal. The words "Deus nobis haec otia fecit," Latin for "God has given us this ease," are replaced with "Perseverando," or "by persevering."
-
1856 - The words "Virginia" and "Perseverando" and the motto Sic Semper Tyrannis first appear inside the exergon of the state seal.
-
April 30, 1861 - The Virginia Convention adopts an ordinance specifying that the design on the obverse of the state seal appear against a background of deep blue and thereafter be the official design for the state flag.
-
June 1861 - At the Second Wheeling Convention, Francis Harrison Pierpont, governor of the Restored government of Virginia, orders that the words "Liberty and Union" be added to both sides of the state seal.
-
1861–1865 - Confederate Virginia, with its capital in Richmond, uses the 1856 version of the state seal while the Restored government of Virginia, with its capital in Wheeling and then Alexandria, uses a revised 1861 seal that bears the words "Liberty and Union."
-
1873 - The General Assembly directs that new copies of the state seal be struck, a greater one and a lesser one, and that the words "Liberty and Union" not appear on either side of either seal.
-
1903 - The General Assembly passes another law concerning the state seal, essentially returning it to the language of the Convention of 1776. Subsequent acts of 1950, 1966, and 2005 will continue to describe the seal in the same manner.
-
Categories
- General
- State Government
References
Further Reading
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Tarter, B. Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia. (2014, June 20). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Seal_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Virginia.
- MLA Citation:
Tarter, Brent. "Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 20 Jun. 2014. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: May 3, 2011 | Last modified: June 20, 2014
Contributed by Brent Tarter, founding editor of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.