DistinctiveDocuments

We've been crafting these type documents for over 20 years. We do use modern techniques to replicate calligraphy of past ages but this helps us keep our cost down. To replicate historical documents such as those from the medieval era by hand would be too cost prohibitive for most customers. We aim to provide documents that echo the spirit of the age without being something that would fool a museum expert. We have over 3000 wax seals in our archive inventory to help us accomplish this task.
In addition to crafting replica documents, we do scanning research on historic seal finds to better enable archeologists to know the image and wording of that seal.

The fact that most were very plain and full of mistakes and cross-outs. For example, when we think of the Middle Ages, we often think that the documents were very fancy, full of gilded illumination and what not but in actuality, most were very plain, even ones issued by kings and queens. Before the advent of paper, most documents were written on parchment made of hide and often, these hides were reused, causing the scribes to use knives to scratch off the old wording. Many times this previous writing can be seen as they were not always so careful in fully erasing them. Sometimes mistakes were simply crossed out and the correct word written on top. To join parchment, scribes would often use hide glue or simply stitch the pieces together.

Today, we have to walk the tightrope between historical authenticity and what the customer expects. As mentioned above, many medieval documents were very plain but most customers expect something fancier so we do use a bit of artistic license when we create our documents, sometimes adding a bit more decoration than what would have been on the original. To join documents, we don't use hide glue or stitch them but use a more advanced adhesive and self parchment strips to give a better looking and stronger document. As we now use computer generated fonts to replicate the writing of bygone eras, the wording may be slightly different but will still keep the spirit of the age. All this is done to keep our cost to the customer more reasonable.

Of course. We are only human. At Distinctive Documents we aim to make every creation as perfect as we can make it but sometimes errors occur or certain things overlooked. If you receive a document from us and there is a mistake, please contact us and give us time to respond. We will endeavour to fix the document to your satisfaction and we would appreciate your patience and understanding whilst we do so. Unfortunately in this impatient age, we do occasionally have customers who might leave a negative review before letting us make it right.

Yes we do and we had a listing for it but too many customers kept ordering the listing without asking us if it was something we could do and we would inadvertently have to cancel and refund the order. If you have a custom document in mind and don't see it available in our shop, message us and give us as much detail as possible. We'll let you know first, if it can be done, second, how long it would take us to do it and third, we'd give you an estimate on how much it would cost. Please keep in mind that sometimes documents require seals that have to be "recreated", meaning that the originals don't exist anymore and we have to get our seal maker to make one.

We are monks who in the modern age practice the skills of medieval knighthood. To supplement the work of our Order, we craft document replicas as one of the subsidiary businesses that we operate. Our Order was formed in 1874 by a veteran of the Crimean War who had become a priest after the War. When the doctrine of Papal Infallibility came into being in 1870, he broke with the mainstream Roman Catholic Church and formed our religious Order, which was influenced heavily by French Gallican concerns of the time. As he was interested in the history of the Knights of St. Lazarus, he created the Order in their image and thus brought us into being. Today, we operate Preceptories in which the nature of our work is done. We appreciate your support.