By the Wight Rev. The Bishop of Salisbury. 223 



English legends he dates from 1745. We have no seals of his first 

 period, and I could hardly make such very strict divisions from the 

 limited number of our seals, but no doubt they correspond generally 

 to Mr. Hope's order. Such being the different studies to which 

 these objects minister, I have no need to apologise to you for the 

 subject I have chosen, but only for the incompleteness of my treat- 

 ment of it. I trust that before this paper is printed the interest 

 which has clearly been aroused in this branch of antiquities will 

 stimulate friends far and near to assist myself and other Bishops to 

 complete their sets of seals. I believe that the Archbishop of 

 Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham have, like mj^self, called in 

 the aid of the veteran, Mr. Robert Ready, of the British Museum, 

 to lay a foundation, and they will, I am sure, be grateful for any 

 help that our members can give them in filling up gaps in that 

 collection and in the Way collection of the Society of Antiquaries. 



Pre- Reformation Bishops' seals are divided by Mr. Hope into four 

 main groups : — 



(1) Seals of dignity, or great seals, of an oval shape, more or less 



pointed at top and bottom, with 



(2) their counterseals ; 1 



(3) private seals, or secreta ; and 



(4) Seals ad causas for public instruments of a less important 



nature than those attested by Nos. 1 and 2. 

 Of these four kinds the second does not seem to have been by any 

 means universal, the private seal being not unfrequently used in 

 place of the counterseal; but where counterseals exist they are often 

 very interesting and beautiful. Bishops of Salisbury after 1375 

 seem comparatively rarely to have used counterseals at all, or, if 

 they did so, used their private signets or the seals ad causas. The 

 use of the seals ad causas for their proper purpose seems to have 

 been pretty general since the Reformation, and they have come to 



1 Counterseals, according to Demay, p 45 have the Latin names oontrasigillum, 

 antisigillum, subsigillum, clavis or custos secreti, clipeus, scutum, consilium, 

 custodia veritatis, testis, fides, nuntius. The counterseal of Kichard, Bishop of 

 Wanton, in 1174, contains the legend " Sum custos et testis sigilli" ; ib., p. 

 43. Bishop Joceline's (see below) has munio sigillum. 



