Revista LaborHistórico ISSN 2359-6910 v.10, n.1, e63287, 2024 DOI: 10.24206/lh.v10i1.63287 PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS VERNACULAS This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. * A frst version of this text was presented by me at the international colloquium Insculpta imago – seal matrices and seal impressions in the Mediterranean (Ruth Wolf, org.), no Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, in 2011, whose minutes were not published. We have updated some bibliography. Artigo Original Editor-in-chief Marcus Dores Célia Lopes Guest Editors Ana Pereira Ferreira Leonor Dias Garcia Ofélia Sequeira Dossier Paleografa e Diplomática na senda das Humanidades Digitais: caminhos e propostas How to cite: GOMES, Saúl A. Imago as political identity: The Royal Seals of the Kingdom of Portugal. Revista LaborHistórico, v.10, n.1, e63287, 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.24206/ lh.v10i1.63287 Imago as political identity: The Royal Seals of the Kingdom of Portugal * A Imagem como Identidade Política: os selos régios do reino de Portugal Saul A. Gomes  Centro de História da Sociedade e da Cultura, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal. E-mail: sagcs@f.uc.pt; saulggomes@gmail.com Abstract In this text, the author contextualizes the use of Portuguese royal seals in the medieval centuries, observing their aesthetic composition and the political and symbolic signifcance of the respective imagery, predo- minantly heraldic, a discourse that is only broken in the seals of some queens. Portuguese royal seals are pieces that project notions and meanings that are strongly symbolic and have a consistent abstract representation about the conception and nature of majestic power in the monarchy of medieval Portugal. Te structural lines of Lusitanian royal sigilography are exposed, in which the non-existence of the seal of majesty stands out, and conjunctures or cycles of originality are defned, compared to the European royal chancelleries of those centuries, and exceptions, as is the case with the conjunctural use of the seal equestrian only between the reigns of kings Afonso III and Fernando I (1248-1383). Keywords Sigillography; Royal seals; Medieval monarchy; Portugal.