In 1404 Norwich became a corporation with a mayor, and according to Blomefield the two earlier, thirteenth-century matrices were broken and sent to London so that their metal could be reused by a goldsmith called Henry Couper to make a new two-sided ‘common’ seal (Fig. 13.16). He also made a seal for the mayor, the three matrices costing £4 13s in total.³⁵ The imagery of two of them as first made is notably religious for civic seals of the period, referencing the dedication of the cathedral to the Trinity, however both were subsequently altered during the Reformation. Blomefield chose to depict the city seal in its original form, necessarily taking the information from a wax impression (Fig. 13.17). The reworked matrix of the city seal survives and is currently on display at the Castle Museum in Norwich in its altered form, with the substitution of IMMANUEL in place of the Trinity (Fig. 13.18). This is dated on the matrix to 1573, a date confirmed by a record to amend the seal in the minutes of a Council meeting in the previous year.³⁶ The mayor’s seal matrix does not seem to be extant, however, and its original form is only known now from impressions or casts (Fig. 13.19). Its imagery was identical to the Trinity side of the original state of the city seal. Perhaps for that reason and perhaps also because the original design was known to him only in a single worn impression, Blomefield chose to have its post-Reformation form engraved (Fig. 13.20), apparently believing it to be a fifteenth-century mayoral seal ‘ad causas’.³⁷ The reworked matrix substituted the resurrected Christ for the image of the Trinity, a task that appears from the city records to have been undertaken in 1568. However, there is some uncertainty because the figure of Christ was not what was originally decided:

‘This daye Mr Mayor moved this hows for thalteracion of the Seall of offyce of mayoralie Wherupon this hows considerying that the Seall of the same office wch now is hath the picture of the Trynytee wch is not only contrary to godds word but allso contrary to the Quenis maiesties iniunctions have and doo agree that the same Seall of the Trynytee shalbe altered and shalbe from henceforth with the Armes of this cittie.’³⁸

Quite how and when this decision was overturned is not currently clear, but it may well be significant that the mayor in 1568 was Thomas Parker, whose brother Matthew was archbishop of Canterbury and whose own seal is also on the Plan.³⁹