An Unpublished Seal of Michael I Keroularios, Patriarch of Constantinople (1043–1058)
To celebrate the 500 members of this subreddit, I wanted to thank you all and mark this milestone by presenting one of the rarest seals in my collection: an exceptional and unpublished example belonging to Michael I Keroularios, Patriarch of Constantinople from 1043 to 1058!
On the obverse, Saint Michael appears within a beaded border, with his wings outstretched, wearing a short chiton and a military chlamys. He holds a labarum in his right hand and a globe in his left. The field bears the letters Χ | ΑΡ and ΜΙ, an abbreviation of Ἀρχάγγελος Μιχαήλ (“Archangel Michael”). The circular inscription also preserves part of the invocative formula, of which the ending is legible: […] δούλῳ (“… servant”).
On the reverse, the inscription is arranged over six lines and gives Michael Keroularios’s titulature:
[Μ]ιχαὴ[λ] [ἀρχιεπισκ(όπῳ) Κων]σταν[τινο]υπόλ(εως) [Νέα]ς Ῥώμ(ης)
The inscription can be translated as: “Michael, Archbishop of Constantinople, the New Rome.”
It is precisely the combination of this titulature with the iconography of Archangel Michael that makes this seal particularly remarkable. V. Laurent distinguishes between an earlier type, dating to before 1054, depicting the Virgin and bearing the title ἀρχιεπίσκοπος Κωνσταντινουπόλεως Νέας Ῥώμης, and a second type, dating to after 1054, depicting Archangel Michael and bearing the title οἰκουμενικός πατριάρχης (“Ecumenical Patriarch”). Yet the seal presented here combines the image of Archangel Michael with the titulature associated with the earlier type.
I am currently preparing a scholarly article on this seal for submission to the Revue des études byzantines (REB). Its study could shed new light on the sigillographic issues of Michael Keroularios and challenge some of the interpretations hitherto accepted concerning them!