Forgive me if this has been asked; I tried a few different searches but couldn’t find anything.
I’m wondering how identity was ascertained in old times if heraldry or similar was unavailable. How did people know of someone’s signature was authentic? Were people better at recognizing facial features?
I’m sorry if this question is too vague to be meaningful, I’m having a little difficulty putting into words what I want to ask.
Basically how did people recognize people they hadn’t met or know if a letter was genuine?
More can be written, but you might like to look through articles in the "Identity Proof & Theft" section of the FAQ. (In the app, the "#" anchor in the URL doesn't work, so find that around 3/4 of the way towards the bottom.)
This is not to discourage discussion. Further questions, data, and debate are welcome.
Please don't feel bad about asking: the rules say, "you are still welcome to ask your question if it has been asked before: you may get new answers from different people." Searching Reddit has ... issues. For wiki searches, you might like queries like "identity" inurl:reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki.