Chichester's seal

A slight departure here, but one which helps us think about the iconography of seals. An interesting article by Lloyd de Beer (hereafter LdB) on Chichester Cathedral seal is here.  I'll summarise it, as it's not written very concisely.

The second seal of Chichester is interesting because on the obverse it has a church, landscape on an oval seal (highly unusual, if not unique), and the church is labelled 'templum iusticie' (temple of justice).  The inscription reads SIGILLUM SANCTE CICESTRENSIS ECCLESIE - seal of the holy Chichester church.  LdB makes much of this, saying that you'd expect 'the chapter of the cathedral' on the inscription - and, for sure, lots of cathedral seals have that (the everyday ad causas Chichester seal, for one).  But Norwich, for example, doesn't.  LdB makes much of it because he uses it as a brick to build up his thesis that Ralph Neville, the bishop of Chichester, commissioned the seal. But I think we have to discard it - although that doesn't make his thesis any less sturdy.

The counterseal (making the reverse of the imprinted bit of wax) is Christ nimbed (with a halo), under a gothic canopy, enthroned on a church, holding (l-h) a book or tablets and blessing with his r-h.  The inscription is EGO SUM VIA VERITAS ET VITA (I am the way, the truth and the life).  LdB links this to Christ described in Revelation (he says 4:1, but I think he means 4:3), and also to Ezekial 43:6-7.  Nice.  After a bit of over-egged flannel, and ideas about the obverse, LdB compares this to Ralph Neville's own seal, and you only have to look at them to see that they are related.


So, back to the obverse seal.  (Image :  British Museum.)  LdB makes a good point about Christ being the temple, and compares it to the Canterbury second seal.  He also compares the counterseal, which is... Christ and the way and the truth and the life - so similar to Chichester's one that, again, you only have to see it to accept the link.  Anyway, the seal has Christ in the doorway of a cathedral-like structure.

Obviously, no-one is in Chichester's doorway.  LdB maintains that the door is half-open, half-shut, and links it to Isaiah 22:20 [sic - it's 22:22] and Revelation 3:7-13.  But I don't think you can necessarily interpret the door as being half-open, and neither passage talks of a half-open door.  So that's flannel, but the door is nonetheless prominent, and his argument may stand, even if his reasoning is a little fanciful.

LdB says that 'templum iusticie' is a reference to John of Salisbury's Policraticus, where he complains that King Stephen expelled Roman law.  John, he says, taught it at Canterbury.  He could well have done - he and Master Vacarius were in Theobald's stellar household, and no doubt the latter was there to teach law, Roman (civil) and canon.  John himself was a decent legal mind.  And, yes, Canterbury was England's top ecclesiastical court, and therefore a temple of justice.

LdB points out that Chichester was not England's top ecclesiastical court.  The 'templum iusticie' may have a more metaphorical/ allegorical significance, especially if it's linked to John of Salisbury's Policraticus.  It could all be linked, indeed, to the role of the church in the government of England.  And this is interesting.  This was the time of Magna Carta.  Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, was instrumental in MC, and it now transpires that his bishops had MC copied in order that it could be published whether King John liked it or not!  When Henry III removed the bit that allowed his magnates to force him to comply with MC, Langton eventually responded by threatening excommunication to any who broke MC.  (You can read more in chapter 4 of this.)

Churchmen, whether John of Salisbury or Stephen Langton, believed that we should be striving to live according to God's will.  That means following the Decalogue, loving thy neighbour etc.  If you are a king, you should be a just king - like Christ, not like the king that Samuel counselled the Israelites against.  (This will eventually find itself into the language of John Fortescue in the fifteenth century, of his politicum et regale.)  In the words of Flanders and Swann, medieval churchmen believed that the king needed 'bishops to show them the way'.  Ralph Neville was Chancellor as well as bishop of Chichester.  As someone heavily involved with government, perhaps he was suggesting that the church was the 'temple of justice', and that the church must guide the king.  In this way, the seal of Chichester Cathedral is a political-theological statement.

I like this thought.  However, there's something else which doesn't get discussed in this article, although I believe he discusses it elsewhere.  The building itself.  It's a weird building - it ain't Chichester, by any stretch of the imagination.  In fact, it doesn't look Anglo-Norman at all.  It does look basilicoid (to coin a word).  I can't find any model for it, but I bet there is one.  The whole church looks as though it would fit better in Jerusalem than in Sussex. It could represent the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, and 'justice' refers to Jesus' trial at the Sanhedrin. (Thanks to Julian Litten for pointing this out.)  Hildegard's vision of Jerusalem has a similar sort of fantasy Jerusalem architecture.  She depicts the kingdom to come - just as Revelation describes.  LdB writes that Cantebury's third seal, from the 1230s, showed the kingdom of heaven, rather than, as before, the temple.  The angels on the obverse of Canterbury's seal are thurifers; on the back, they look very like they are bearing keys - to the kingdom of heaven.

Lloyd de Beer has packed a lot in this article!