The founder's salt at All Souls College: the recent repair and conservation of this celebrated and unique masterpiece of medieval goldsmith's work has allowed Claude Blair and Marian Campbell to conduct the first detailed investigation into its date, origins and meaning

Apollo, May, 2005 by Claude Blair, Marian Campbell

The so-called 'Giant' or 'Huntsman' salt at All Souls College, Oxford, is famous amongst people interested in early English goldsmiths' work (Fig. 2). Made of silver-gilt in the form of a bearded man supporting a crystal salt-container on his head, it is mentioned in most general works on the history of English silver, and has been displayed in a number of loan exhibitions, most recently in 'A Treasured Inheritance: 600 Years of Oxford Silver' at the Ashmolean Museum, and illustrations of it have been published many times. (1) Despite this fame, and its obvious importance as a unique survival of a major type of medieval salt otherwise recorded only in documents, no detailed study of it has ever been published, and no published information is available about its history before 1799, when it was bequeathed to the college as its 'Founder's Salt'. (2) The Founder was Henry Chicheley or Chichele (1362?-1443), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1414, who founded All Souls in 1437 (Fig. 1) (3)

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Furthermore, no evidence has ever been published either for dating the salt or for attributing it to any particular country or area, although there has always been general agreement that it was made in the fifteenth century, and a tacit assumption that it is English. Likewise, the question of whether or not it could actually have belonged to Chicheley seems never to have been discussed seriously, although a number of authorities have dated it, without offering any supporting evidence, to the second half of the fifteenth century, that is, after his death. The purpose of the present study is to consider these problems.

Documentation of the salt

We will start with an account of such documentation as we have been able to discover about the history of the salt. This should be read in conjunction with the outline pedigree of the Chicheley family (Appendix 1) and the outline descent of the salt (Appendix 2).

The source of the bequest of 1799 was Mrs Catherine Griffith, eldest daughter of Sir William St Quintin, Bt, and widow of Christopher Griffith of Padworth, Berkshire. She died on 11 September 1801, aged 72, and was buried in the parish church at Padworth, adjacent to her husband's family seat. (4) Her will, which is dated 6 February 1799, was proved on 5 October 1801, and contains the following passage: 'I give the Picture of Archbishop Chichele and the Salt Cellar he used (which I have excepted in my will out of the Bequest of Plate therein contained) to the College of All Souls Oxford which he was founder of and to whose Family my dear husbands first wife was related.' (5)

Mrs Griffith's husband, Christopher Griffith Jr, of Padworth, had died on 12 January 1776, in his 56th year, leaving the whole of his estate to her, without specifying details in his will. (6) He was the son of Christopher Griffith Sr (d. 1757), by his wife Mary (nee Brightwell), and in 1757 had married his cousin Ann (1738-58), daughter by his aunt Ann (nee Brightwell, d. 1740) of Richard Chicheley of Lambeth (d. 17 July 1737). The last-named, who at the time of his death was secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, had become a Fellow of All Souls in 1704, undoubtedly because he had been able to establish that he was 'Founder's Kin'. (7) His will, dated 11 July 1737, with codicils of 15 and 16 July of the same year, was proved on 24 July 1738, and contains the following references to the salt. In the will he states, 'I give and bequeath to the Warden and College of All Souls Oxon my piece of Gilt Plate which was formerly Arch Bishop Chicheleys to be preserved by them in memory of their Founder.' In the codicil of 16 July he added, 'And I do give my said Daughter Ann Chicheley my piece of Gilt Plate which was formerly Arch Bishop Chicheleys to be delivered to her upon day [sic] of Marriage or when She shall be one and twenty years of Age, but if she should dye before that time I do give the same to All Souls College Oxon, as I have directed by my will.' (8)

It is clear from this why Catherine Griffith, who had married Anne Chicheley's widower, should have bequeathed the salt to All Souls.

Richard Chicheley, Christopher Griffith's first father-in-law, was one of the sons of Rear-Admiral Sir John Chicheley of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire. His elder brother, also John, was made a Fellow of All Souls in 1699, and a barrister of the Middle Temple in 1701. He died in 1727 or 1728, and in his will, dated 7 April 1727, proved 17 May 1728, left his brother Richard 'my peice of old Plate comonly called Archbishop Chicheleys Salt Seller being the figure of a Man supporting a Christiall [sic] Globe'. He had been an antiquary and collector, who at one time owned the Wilton Diptych, now in the National Gallery, London, and was also one of the people who refounded the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1717. (10) It might have been hoped, therefore, that he would have left some account of so important a piece of antiquity as the salt, or at least have exhibited it to his fellow Antiquaries so that it would be recorded in their minute books. Sadly, no doubt because of the then prevailing taste for classical antiquities, we can find no evidence that he did either of these things.