| Order Number | CCA-DCc-SealBag |
| Title | Seal Bags |
| Date | 8th-17th century |
| Description | This is a brief catalogue of the seal bags in the Archives. The seal bags are made of linen, silk or samite, a luxurious heavy silk often woven with gold or silver thread. The weaving of many of the silks probably predates their use as seal-bags, in some cases by many centuries. Their original function was presumably to protect fragile seals from damage, and give additional prestige to documents issued by the King or high-status ecclesiastics. Most of the seal bags were apparently separated from their original charters in the late 19th century. The provenance of some, including No. 18, has been lost, and No. 20 was missing by 1934. Although other seal bags are found in the National Archives and in ecclesiastical archives such as at Durham Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, this is thought to be the largest collection of seal bags in England.
The collection comprises a total of 61 seal-bags and related material which probably date from the 8th to the 17th centuries. The date of many items is unknown and so a rough conjectural date has been suggested. Most of the charters to which the bags were attached date from the late 12th to early 14th centuries. Some of the bags are plain, while others have highly complex woven designs. The seal bags were mounted between sheets of glass at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1927. Since the items were examined in 1934, some of the designs and colours appear to have faded; where this seems to be the case, the earlier description is also supplied together with its current appearance. Dimensions are given as maximum width x height in cm. as presented in modern packaging. |
| Extent | 62 items |
| AccessStatus | Open |
| Copies | Digitised |
| Related Material | Some other seal bags are still attached to their original documents. For these, see ChAnt/P/49, C/1061, L/8, M/1, M/241, and W/62. See also CCA-U39/19/2-3 for a seal and green seal bag from St Augustine’s Abbey, and U472/2 and 3 from Bilsington Priory. For other medieval textile document wrappings, see ChAnt/C/155 and 158. |
| Publication Note | Publications: A. F. Kendrick, ‘Seal Bags at Canterbury', Burlington Magazine 305 Vol. 53 (Aug 1928), pp. 87-91; G. Robinson & H. Urquhart, with Appendix by A Hindson, ‘Seal bags in the Treasury of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury’, Archaeologia 84 (1934), pp. 163-211; A Hindson, ‘Canterbury Seal Bag No. 18’, Bulletin de Liaison du Centre International d’Etude des Textiles, 30 (Jul 1969), pp. 43-68. Some are shown in CCA-Photo/179. See also CCA-DCc-LA/5/77, a typed inventory of the seal bags made by William Urry in 1948. Photographs of seal bags (17 mounted photos in box folder, with printed descriptions stating 'Preserved in the Library of Canterbury Cathedral'), c. 1870, shelved at Bay C-18-5.
For other seal bags from Bilsington Priory, see C. E. Woodruff, ‘Notes on some early documents relating to the manor, church and priory of Bilsington, Kent’, Archaeologia Cantiana 41 (1929), pp. 19-36. |
| Notes | This inventory for the Online Catalogue was made by Toby Huitson in late November 2011. It draws on the specialist knowledge in the 1934 journal article and other publications. The bags, once kept between sheets of glass, are now stored in two different formats. The most precious and elaborate items are in a landscape volume of encapsulated pages bound in an extendable binding. (Note: some are now repackaged in Conservation boxes, as of 2021). This contains bags 1- 2, 5, 6, 8- 9, 11, 13-18, 22-24, 30, 32 and 33. These bags have been flattened out. The remainder of the seal bags are packaged in low-profile boxes, typically as three-dimensional objects. The first box contains No. 1A, 2A, 3-4, 5A, 7, 8A, 9A, 9B, 10, 10A-E, 12, 19, 21, 24A, 25 and 26; the second contains No. 27-29, 30B-C, 31, and 34-40. The numbering system uses a number for the first seal on a document, with extra letters for additional seal bags. The order throughout is numerical but non-sequential. |