While this tremendous controversy is echoed in the iconography of the archiepiscopal seals ever since Hubert Walter introduced the martyrdom-motif for the reverse’s design in 1193,²³ one wonders why the monks of Christ Church did not follow Walter’s lead until the early 1230s. When the chapter’s monks did eventually introduce this motif, they even expanded it to a whole pictorial narrative of Becket’s passion told on three pictorial registers: in the gallery of round-headed arches above the crime scene two angels are carrying Becket’s soul towards the Saviour, who appears within a large and deeply recessed trefoil in the gable (Fig. 12.2). Even within the rich imagery of this saint’s sacrifice across various artistic media of that time, this was unique in its expression and sophistication. That said, the motif of a soul transcending into Heaven can, however, be found in other artistic media such as sculpture, in particular within sepulchral contexts. The lavishly decorated tombstone of the capitular canon Bruno in Hildesheim Cathedral from around 1200 shows a strikingly similar three-partite composition (Fig. 12.3).²⁴ The narration of Bruno’s ascension begins with the preparation of his dead body by his fellow canons in the lower section and is then continued by the central scene of two angels carrying his soul to the Saviour in the uppermost field framed by a trefoil arch. The striking similarity between the two ascension scenes, set in elaborate architectural frameworks in rather distant cathedral chapters and at about the same time, raises the question of the importance of artistic strategies in incorporating memory within the visual culture of episcopal churches c. 1200.