On the Seals of the Bishops of Salisbury. 



221 



I was therefore led to examine such seals as were accessible in the 

 British Museum and in the Bodleian Library, and formed certain 

 genera] conclusions, which were not difficult to gather, even from 

 such a hurried and partial survey as I then had time to make. Now 

 I am glad to find that my friend, Mr. W. H. St. John Hope, 

 Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, has collected a much larger 

 store of information, and drawn much more precise and practical 

 conclusions from the fine series of seals in the possession of that 

 Society, formed, I believe, by the late highly-esteemed Albert Way. 

 Mr. Hope's paper was read in two divisions on February 3rd and 

 10th, of this year, and has been recently printed in the Proceedings 

 of the Society. To that paper all succeeding enquirers will naturally 

 refer, and it has been of the greatest possible service to me in the 

 memoir which I have the honour of putting before you now. 

 I do not think that he makes any comparison between our seals and 

 the corresponding Scottish series, but in most respects his work 

 seems to be very complete. 



The interest of the subject to which I desire to direct attention 

 is in itself considerable. As works of art illustrating the improve- 

 ment, the decay, and the caprices of public and private taste, seals 

 yield to few of the smaller monuments of the class to which they 

 belong, and they have the great merit of being subject to strict 

 classification, in order of time, and of forming an almost continuous 

 series if we examine a sufficient number of examples. Mr. Hope 

 appears to have had before him one hundred and sixty-eight examples 

 of pre-Keformation seals. His words are " From Osbern (Exeter 

 1072) to Stephen Gardiner (Winchester 1531) inclusive, there ought . 

 to be at least eight hundred and seventy-two seals, but we only 



in Soden-Sniith's catalogue, pp. 16, and 17. Dodsworth's Salisbury contains 

 plates of the seals of Joceline and Ri. Poor, and Benson and Hatcher's Salisbury, 

 pi. i-, 1843, that of Bishop Neville. I have not yet seen Mr. W. de G. Birch's 

 Catalogue of Seals in the British Museum, of which vol. i. has just been 

 published (1888). I learn from the Rev. J. Charles Cox that " Among the 

 Lichfield Capitular muniments is a book that contains on consecutive pages all 

 the episcopal seals from Bishop Hackett (A.D. 1661) downward to the present 

 day. It is the assent of each Bishop to the statutes." 



