Scottish Bishops' Seals
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Glasgow Museums has a small collection of 163 seal copies which were used by Bishops who worked both in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland. This collection mostly comprises seals which record medieval Bishops of Glasgow (85), and others St Andrews, Scotland’s other largest Diocese alongside Glasgow, Brechin, Morvern and Dunbar. The earliest accessions of these gutta percha, a type of rubber, and plaster cast seal copies were made 1877 and the last in 1958. They are commonly small, measuring no more than 30 –40mm across. The collections can be placed into the contexts of antiquarian interest in Scottish history, and medieval ecclesiastical building and archaeology which became increasingly popular in Scotland in the19th century. Glasgow museums has good collections of decorative and depictive art inspired by Glasgow Cathedral and the ruins of the nearby Bishop’s Palace. These seals not only illustrate the insignia of Bishops, and Diocese but also give an impression of the importance of the Church, Bishops and Cathedrals to Scottish government, nobility and society. Although archival evidence of Bishops’ signatures is rare, these examples of seals illustrate how documents would have been ratified by the Bishop and Cathedral Chapter and how the Cathedrals and Diocese were administered through the use of an official stamp and corporate logo. Some seals also present the Bishop and Cathedral in terms of the Cathedral’s patron saint. For example, the two copies of Bishop Jocelyn of Glasgow’s seal, dating to the 1170s, both record the name of Kentigern. This Bishop commissioned the life of St Kentigern to be written and for the Cathedral to be rebuilt to accommodate the pilgrimage to St Kentigern’s shrine which he sought to encourage at this time. On the other hand, seals from other parts of Scotland represent later, and more troubled, ecclesiastical history, such as the 16th and 17th centuries when the Reformation and Restoration periods saw the powerful roles of medieval Bishops changing in Scotland.
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