Westminster Abbey seal bag to match Charlemagne’s funeral

Researchers have discovered a small silk bag attached to a document in Westminster Abbey that matches Charlemagne’s shroud. It is woven with white rabbit and floral patterns and dates from the early 12th century. This fabric was not the first shroud used when burying the first Holy Roman Emperor who died in 814, but was used to wrap his body when it was reburied in Karlsschrein of the shroud. Karlschrein is a splendid temple decorated with gold, silver, enamel and precious stones that were exhibited in Aachen Cathedral in 1215. In 1267, the same textile was used as a bag to protect a wax seal bearing the seal of King Henry III on a related document. Temple dedicated to Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey.

The cloth was sewn into a pouch to protect a wax figure of Henry III, and the king affixed it to the inventory of items in the shrine dedicated to Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, which Henry had pawned to pay off war debts. In the document, the king promised to replace the jewelry and valuables he put in within 18 months. It appears he cashed the promissory note.

Sealed bags are used to cover the wax seal impressions affixed to charters and other documents to verify the identity of the signer. Wax figures are soft and serve as the legal signatures of kings, queens, nobles, bishops and other dignified figures. They not only hold legal importance but are also authentic artifacts in their own right. The signers held the wax blocks while they were still hot. They leave their physical marks, such as fingerprints and grease, as well as the imprint of official seals. Because of the importance of their layering, wax prints were bagged for protection, and the textiles used to make the bags were prized, often tartar cloth (Islamic silk dyed with plants imported from as far away as China and woven with gold and silver threads).

Charlemagne’s shrine was opened in 1988, and photographs taken at the time document the Shroud. The Shroud was intact, so the Shroud at Westminster Abbey was not cut from the Shroud itself, but it must have been made by the same weaver on the same loom. This gorgeous textile was created by expert weavers in Islamic Spain or the Eastern Mediterranean, and the pattern is impossible to obtain from any other source. There are no knockoffs lying around and no mass-produced inventory sitting in warehouses.

As a textile wrapping the remains of an emperor who was revered as a saint in the lands he once ruled (so Emperor Frederick II had his bones transformed into reliquaries), silk holds great significance. Henry III may even have chosen it deliberately to connect the entrenched cult of the German king Charlemagne with the nascent cult of the English king Edward the Confessor.

How the abbey received such valuable silks remains a mystery, but one possible theory offered by Matthew Payne, the conservator who oversees the abbey’s archives, is that the silks may have been a gift from Henry III’s brother, of Cornwall Earl Richard is famous for donating precious cloths to the monastery. Richard was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1257, more than 400 years after his predecessor Charlemagne.

The package (and its accompanying documents) will be on display in the Queen’s Jubilee Gallery at Westminster Abbey until Easter 2025.