Cloth Seal, Norwich, Alnage, Norim (Queried Noram - Northampton), Image & Found by PhilD
From Upper Poppleton near York, 20 x 14mm.
Crown on one side and on the other an annulus with . N O(R?)(A M)* inscribed and 88 in the centre.
See BSG.CS.01459 for the seal that provided the correction of NORAM to NORIM.
Strong similarities with No.77 Fig.21, Geoff Egan, 'Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M. Occasional Paper 93)' NORWICH around the date, 1681, and a Crown of the same style as on this seal on the other side. Possibly NORAM was an unconventional Latin abbreviation for Norwich?
This is a James II alnage seal from 1688. A published seal [Egan, G., 1994, No.77 Fig.21], has a layout and crown of the same design and is clearly marked 16 / 81 with N O R W I C H as an inscription around, but that length of word would not fit with the double spacing used on this seal. Another seal, BSG.CS.00018, is a parallel with a clearer rendition of NORAM. It was initially speculated to be a corruption of the Latin genitive plural, pannorum for cloth, but Northampton would be a more appropriate abbreviation.
“In the late 17th and the 18th century centuries there was some manufacture in Northamptonshire of new draperies - serges, tammies and shalloons - mostly at Kettering (V. C. H. Northamptonshire 1906,333; cf. Kerridge 1972,29). In the late 1680s an annual duty of £30 was collected by the alnager on broadcloths and serges in the county (H. M. C. 1894,42).” [Egan. G., 1987, p.199].
