Walsingham

Walsingham was, and is, a pilgrimage site.  Having been told by the Virgin Mary in the Holy Land to build a replica of the house where the Annunciation occurred, Richeldis de Faverches built a small wooden house in the middle of Norfolk.  This soon became a centre for pilgrimage, and the Augustinian canons moved in and built a fine priory there in 1153 (Augustinians were in charge of several pilgrimage sites - e.g. St Frideswide's, Oxford).

The seal is late 12th or early 13th century.  It's very nice - with the BVM & C on a lovely high-backed throne and these gorgeous drapes making almost a polylobed recessed panel.

The obverse is a church with people (pilgrims?) praying in.

Recently, the V&A's Langham Madonna was shown to be a good candidate for the famed statue of Our Lady of Walsingham.

PS.  I've just seen Kirkstall's first seal.  It's very similar - a copy, one might say.

Oseney

Oseney Abbey's seal is from c.1290, and has the BVM and Child, she crowned (fleur-de-lis); he nimbed (cruciform).  She seems to be giving him a dummy; Birch says it's an orb (could it be a rose?).  Is Christ receiving the nice ball from mama, or is his r-h in benediction? 

Cf the amazing Clare Chasuble (below, courtesy of the V&A); you can read more about it here and on this nice post about Opus Anglicanum.  It's from about the same time, celebrating the marriage of Margaret de Clare and Edmund, nephew of Henry III.  (They were married in 1272 and divorced in 1294.)

(My money's on Bogo de Clare for commissioning the chasuble - Lars Kjaer's exploration of his household accounts show that's exactly the sort of thing he'd go for!  By the way, notice the BVM's seat - very like the Merton one.)
 

On the Oseney seal, Mother and Child sit in a trefoiled arch, with lovely crockets (the things that look like snails crawling up a spire), with buttresses and pinnacles.  Birch notes the inscription De Oxonia on the plinth of the niche.  They are on top of a platform with two architectural corbels, all being a canopy for an ox passant guardant, for Oxford.  The presence of the ox is interesting; Oseney was a major landlord in Oxford, but also had more to do with its university than is generally acknowledged.

The seal has certain similarities with Bruton's, which itself has similarities with Merton's.

Bruton

H. Kingsford pointed out the similarity between Merton's seal and that of Bruton Priory, Somerset.

Left is Bruton's seal and right is Merton's.  Merton's, from 1241, has finer workmanship, and it's likely that Bruton's was a copy, or derived inspiration from Merton's.  I think that Merton's was the inspiration for a number of seals, including that of Nicholas Farnham, Bishop of Durham.  In 1241, Merton was at the height of its powers, being used for royal administration, and being a centre for learning.

The similarities are the Virgin and Child, although she does not hold the virga; the 'windows' with canons' head peeking through; the canopy over the BVM and Child, even with the little rosettes in between the spires.  Her throne is different, and it rests on another canopy, under which are canons praying to her.  On either side of her, above the panels, are a star and moon.  Both the star and moon and the praying figures are fashionable features, and can be seen on various institutional and episcopal seals from the period.  No one seems to have made a comprehensive study of these...yet... but I'm working on it!  It's impossible to say whether the Bruton seal was from the same workshop, or was a provincial copy.  Bruton was nowhere near as wealthy as Merton, and Merton's seal must have cost a lot.  I think Kingsford must be right that Merton's seal was made in the workshop that supplied King Henry's seal(s).  Could Bruton have afforded a seal by the king's workshop?  On the other hand, the Bruton seal is also very fine (I'll try to get a better picture of both seals soon).  Perhaps someone was related to someone.

Walter de Merton's love for Merton Priory sealed...with a seal?

Walter de Merton received his first living from Merton Priory.  He was their 'well-beloved clerk' for many years and took his name after the priory, changing it from Walter de Basingstoke.  (Just think, it could have been Basingstoke College, Oxford...).  J. R. L. Highfield suggested that the Merton College use of 'hostelry, infirmary, and granary seem to reflect the monastic world of Merton Priory' (Early Rolls of Merton [the College!], p.65).  Walter's closeness to Merton may perhaps also be seen in his seal.

In A companion to seals in the Middle Ages (ed. L. J. Whatley, Leiden 2019), Philippa Hoskins writes that the ‘standard form of the English episcopal seal of dignity had emerged’ by the middle of the 12th century (p.201).  Bishops were depicted always with their crozier, sinister, and benediction, dexter.  ‘From the late twelfth century British bishops begin to be depicted standing on a corbel’ (p.202).  Bishops introduce patterns and motifs to distinguish their seals.  She suggests that Bishop Richard Marsh of Durham is standing ‘on marshy ground.’ (p.203.)  Here he is:

 It was a screenshot from this nice site, so to see it better, click on that link!

Richard Marsh (a bit of a villain) was Adam Marsh's uncle.  Adam knew our Walter.  But back then, it was a small world.  Richard's successor-but-a-couple was Nicholas Farnham, physician and philosopher. His seal is below, left.  Notice the two windows with heads in them.


The Merton College historian Roger Highfield put this seal together with that of Nicholas' clerk, Walter of Merton.  Here he is, which I managed once to track down online, but can't remember where from.  It's in the British Library, anyway.  Highfield is right - there is a resemblance.  Nicholas Farnham was a Surrey man, not too far from the Hampshire Walter's Basingstoke.  Nicholas held the living of Long Ditton from Merton Priory.  Walter, in 1233, was given by Merton the living at Cuddington.  When Nicholas became Bishop of Durham (1241-9), he took various Surrey types with him, including Walter.

Here's Merton Priory's seal from 1241.

Look at the heads!  BUT before we get too excited, here is a bucket of cold water in the shape of J. P. Dalton's The Archiepiscopal and Deputed Seals of York, 1114-1500 (York, 1992).  He says that faces in 'foiled recesses' [now, that needs more investigation - they aren't all foiled - we've noted Nicholas Farnham's lozenges] was quite common in the 13th century:  Archbishop Richard Grant of Canterbury (1229-31); Edmund of Abingdon (1233-40) [a good Merton friend - he has 4!], Bishop Robert Stichill of Durham (1261-74).  At York, Godfrey Ludham, William Wickwane, John le Romeyne, William Melton.  William Greenfield (d.1315) ditched the fussy recesses and just had the heads.  Walter's heads are episcopal; Merton's are canonical.  Nicholas'?  Dunno.

However, there's more to these seals than just the heads.  St Augustine, on the Merton seal, stands on a platform supported by a fleur-de-lys (very appropriate for a Marian dedication).  So does Walter's.  (I can't see whether Nicholas' does.)

Closer inspection of all of them would yield results; meanwhile, it looks very like the Merton Priory influence spreading everywhere...

Interestingly, Walter's seal doesn't have a canopy; it has a star instead.  This star is reminiscent of Jacob the Jew's seal.  This is from the Merton College Archives, as is the seal below.  They also have Ela Longspee's seal.  She's rather an interesting character - definitely a 12th-century blue-stocking, and great friend of both Walter and his college.








Merton College's 14th-century seal (you can see a beautiful BIG picture of it here) has the BVM and Babe - the college is dedicated to St Mary.  It has some Mertonesque features - the ornate canopy, the diapered background (although here just of the seat), and a virga (I think that's what is poking up, sinister), but it's much more like the Oseney's seal:  the BVM is handing Christ the orb, and she leans towards him (and that's similar, too, to Merton's first seal).  Underneath, there's a strikingly similar arch to Oseney's, but with a tonsured supplicant (Walter?) underneath.  Its original seal showed 'five souls held in a cloth in the bosom of Abraham.'  That's a really interesting seal! 

Cornworthy

This was a small nunnery near Totnes.  Founded in 1238, this was a poor and isolated community.  The seal probably dates from then.

The seal inscription is + SIGILL' CONVENT D' CORNEWRThI.

Finds.org, where you'll find this seal, says:

'Incidentally, although not much is known about Cornworthy Priory, it does feature in one of the most exciting stories about a medieval English nun - the tearaway Alice de Flixthorpe of Stamford Priory (Lincolnshire). Eileen Power tells the story in Medieval English Nunneries. She was so much trouble, repeatedly escaping from her nunnery, turning up in men's clothing, completely impenitent after excommunication etc, that she was taken as far from trouble as possible and Cornworthy was chosen as her new home. After months in shackles and years of isolation it seemed that her spirit was broken, so she was returned to Lincolnshire. But as Eileen Power puts it, 'her native air blew hope and rebellion into that wild heart' and she was soon back to her old tricks! The end of the story is not known."'  Intriguing...

Birch gave Cornworthy as an Austin priory; the seal is BM 3003.

Langdon Abbey (Premonstratensian)

Well, we have to include this one. The Premenstrualtensions were Augustinians of a sort, anyway.

VCH Kent says:  "The abbey of St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr, Langdon, was founded by William de Aubervilla and colonized from the abbey of Leiston in Suffolk. The founder, by a charter which is witnessed by Hubert, bishop-elect of Salisbury, and must therefore belong to the year 1189, with the assent of Maud his wife and his heirs, granted all his town of Langdon for the making of a Premonstratensian abbey by Robert, abbot of Leiston, and gave to it the churches of Langdon, Walmer, Oxney, and Lydden, for the soul of Henry II and the souls of William his son, Emma his daughter, Hugh his father, and Wymarc his mother, and Ranulph de Glanvilla and Berta his wife. The phrasing seems to indicate that Henry II was then dead, and in that case the date of the foundation must lie between 6 July and 22 October, when Bishop Hubert was consecrated."

The seal is from the late 13th century, and is now in the British Museum.

And here is the BVM and Child:

And on the other side, the murder of Thomas Becket.

Gisburne (Guisborough)

Nat.Archives: SC 13/R 23.
13th century.

The BVM sits enthroned with the Christ child on her left knee, under an arch and church canopy; around her the legend:  AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA.  To her left (possibly mirrored to her right, but the seal is incomplete) is a canon kneeling in prayer, in a separate arch.  The trefoil windows with tracery underneath on the canopy recall the east end of Guisborough, so perhaps this seal was actually based on the priory, and not just a flight of gothic fancy.

The legend on the rim (incomplete):  SIL. PRIORAT. BEATE MARIE DE GYSEBURNE.

Above the canopy are censing angels, similar to the ones on the Canterbury second seal (which you can see and read about here) or Norwich's seal.  There's a nod perhaps to Merton's seal; there's also perhaps a nod to Walter Giffard's seal, with the full-length figures in niches, although this wasn't uncommon.
PS.  Gisburne Part II.  I've just discovered Charles Clay's 1928 paper on 'The Seals of the Religious Houses of  Yorkshire', in Archaeologia (online! Hurrah!).  He gives the counterseal to this seal (pictured left).  It has the same architecture, but with a rather fat St Augustine in the middle, on a similar seat - but beneath that is an arcade of pointed arches; the BVM has one of fleurs-de-lys.  His staff is in his left hand, and his right hand is in benediction, and he is vested for mass, as befits a bishop (cf. Augustine on Merton's seal, or Nicholas on Drax's).  Around him are the words ORA P[RO] NOBIS BE[ATE] AVGV[STINE].  Dexter, beneath a crocketed canopy, a kneeling canon, with a crescent above him (cf the star above the kneeler on the seal); sinister, the remains of a corresponding canopy and presumably another figure.  The inscription is very incomplete.
Compare this with Anthony Bek's seal (right).  Bek was the first bishop of the 13th century to sit, and the compositional similarities are striking - he has Oswald and Cuthbert either side of him.  Bek's seal is extraordinary for its aesthetic innovations, its workmanship and its sheer effrontery - he's asserting himself as quasi-royal; at once holy and, with his heraldic chasuble, a massive temporal power.  Gisburne's seal-maker and/ or commissioner surely knew Bek's seal.

Clay also showed Gisburne's previous, 12th-century, seal.  It's much less architectural, but not necessarily less ornate.  It's a pointed oval, 2 ½ x 1 ¾", and has the BVM in conventual dress, seated on a chair ornamented with round arches, reading a book on a lectern, with a star of eight points in front of her on the dexter.  The inscription reads:  + SIGILLVM • SANCTE • MARIE • DE • GISEBVRNC [he gives the last letter as C, but it's a weird C.  Perhaps it's N?]  I'll have to look up the BVM (and other saints) reading.  It's the Word, but does it also show the importance of learning?  All this is on a dainty carved corbel.


Clay describes two counterseals to this: 1) Pointed oval,1 5/8”. A bird.* SIGILLUM : SECRETI :  2) BVM and Child; below, a kneeling figure. AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DOMINUS TECUM.