The Seals of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter

Abstract

The 14th-century audit accounts of the chapter of Lincoln Cathedral record expenditure for the year 1305–06, and contain valuable information about the manufacture of a silver matrix for a ‘great seal’. This short note considers why the chapter might have spent a large sum of money on a seal matrix when they already possessed a common seal, and reveals the rediscovery in 2018 of the original 12th-century silver matrix of the seal of the chapter of Lincoln Cathedral.

Keywords:

• matrix
• seal
• goldsmiths
• great seal
• ad causas seal

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the Institute of Historical Research for a Scouloudi Historical Award to research this subject in 2017. My thanks also go to Tom Nickson, Michael Carter, Alexandra Gajewski, Sandy Heslop, Eric Fernie, Jenny Stratford, John Cherry, Gerrit Verhoeven, John Milner, Carol Bennet and Anne Riches and to the anonymous reviewers of this article for their help and encouragement.

Notes

1 K. Major, Lincoln Cathedral: Some Materials for its History in the Middle Ages (Lincoln 1992); D. M. Owen ed., A History of Lincoln Minster (Cambridge 1994), 142; D. M. Williamson, The Muniments of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln (Lincoln 1956), 23, 28, 29.

2 H. S. Kingsford, ‘Some English Medieval Seal-Engravers’, Archaeol. J., 97 (1940), 155–80, at 165–66.

3 Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln, Manuscript D&C A/2/23, fol. 3v, 1263 x 1272, records, for example, a house that formerly belonged to the goldsmith of the feretory of St Hugh: ‘[…] domum fabrice ecclesiae nostre ex australi parte thesaurario ecclesiae cum pertinentiis suis, Quondam consuetum […] aurifabro feretri beati hugonis’.

4 G. Zarnecki ed., English Romanesque Art (London 1984), 314.

5 ‘Sigillum capituli principaliter custodire’: Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, Part 1. Liber Niger, ed. C. Wordsworth (Cambridge 1892), 285.

6 ‘De officio prepositi. Et ad suum spectat officium portare sigillum cotidianum, et de cista continente maius sigillum clavem unam’: Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, Part 2. Liber Niger, ed. C. Wordsworth (Cambridge 1897), 168.

7 The letter ‘N’ was not reversed on the matrix, a relatively common blunder found also, for example, on an early-13th-century seal matrix made for Taunton in Somerset: H. S. Kingsford, ‘Some English Medieval Seal-Engravers’, JBAA, 97 (1940), 155–80, at 157.

8 For the broader context see T. A. Heslop, ‘Seals’, in English Romanesque Art (London 1984), 298–319; N. Stratford, ‘Niello in England in the Twelfth Century’, in Art and Patronage in the English Romanesque, ed. S. MacReady and F. H. Thompson, Society of Antiquaries of London Occasional Papers, NS, 8 (London 1986), 28–49.

9 K. French ed., The Registrum Antiquissimum of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln, Lincoln Record Society, 68 (Lincoln 1973), pl. XIX; English Romanesque Art, 314; W. de G. Birch, Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London 1887–1900), I, 271. One of the anonymous reviewers of this article also drew my attention to the impression attached to Lincolnshire Archives Dij/75/3/11 (1184 x 1189).

10 Ibid., 271; Durham Cathedral Archive: Medieval Seals, seal no. 3199: https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/s1vh53wv76d.xml (accessed 17 December 2021).

11 A. Dorr, ‘Lincoln Cathedral Chapter and Ceremonial Gift-Exchange: establishing alliances in the fourteenth century’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Lincoln, 2018), 163. I thank the anonymous reviewers of this article for bringing this to my attention.

12 See, for example, R. E. G. Cole, ‘Proceedings relative to the canonization of Robert Grosseteste bishop of Lincoln’, Associated Architectural Societies’ Reports and Papers, 33 (1915), 1–28; P. Sella and M. H. Laurent, I sigilli dell’ Archivio Vaticano, 3 vols (Vatican City 1937–64); M. L. Ambrosini and M. Willis, The Secret Archives of the Vatican (Boston and Toronto 1969).

13 Kingsford, ‘Some English Medieval Seal-Engravers’, 159; Birch, Catalogue of Seals, I, 346, 204, 232.

14 See Birch, Catalogue of Seals, I, 516, 579, 545, 698, 508, 778, for ad causas seals and seal casts from the Benedictine monasteries at Colchester, Hatfield and Ely; from the Austin Canons priories in Pentney, Norfolk and St Osyth’s, Essex; and from the Premonstratensian Abbey of Torr.

15 Society of Antiquaries of London, catalogue number B25. This is a cast of a seal which in 1921 was in the collection of Lord de l’Isle and Dudley, attached to a 15th-century document. See C. L. Kingsford, ‘On some ancient deeds and seals belonging to Lord de l’Isle and Dudley’, Archaeologia, 65 (1914), 251–68. Kingsford compares it to a cast in the British Library: Birch, Catalogue of Seals, I, 272.

16 P. Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets. Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200–1400 (London 1996), 124, 152–74.

17 K. Major, Lincoln Cathedral: Some Materials for its History in the Middle Ages (Lincoln 1992), 37–39.

18 See note 6 above.

19 ‘Item in factura unius catene ad novum sigillum 5 s. Item in duabus bursis correis pro sigillis de communa 13 d.’ ‘For making a chain for the new seal 5 s. For two leather bags for the seals of the community 13 d.’: Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln, Manuscript Dean and Chapter Bj/2/4, fol. 26v.

20 ‘Since the twelfth century this seal has continued in uninterrupted use down to the present time, but as it is now showing signs of wear it is to be superseded by an electrotyped facsimile to prevent further injury to so interesting a relic’: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, NS 14 (1893), 13–15.

21 English Romanesque Art, 314; Heinrich der Löwe und seine Zeit: Herrschaft und Repräsentation der Welfen 1125–1235 (Braunschweig 1995), cat. no. D. 109.

22 See https://lincolncathedral.com/rare-12th-century-relic-found/ (accessed 17 December 2021). It was authenticated by T. A. Heslop, among others.

23 English Romanesque Art, 314.

24 Expansions are indicated in italics.