Cloth Seal, Belgian, Malines, Image & Found by James Crombie.
Found in Yorkshire, 16mm.
Two disc cloth seal with connecting strip showing a crosier with (E)PS.(LEODI) around and the other disc possibly shows the top right hand corner of a shield bearing paly of three, inscription - (F)LO B(ERTHUL) around.
See No.325 Fig.43, Geoff Egan, Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M.occ.papers 93). This appears to be the same seal but from a different matrix as the inscription lines up differently to the images in Egan with the S above the crosier on this seal.
"The arms are the former ones of Malines. The legend may be restored from a number of parallels found in London and Yorkshire as FLO BERTHUL. EPS LEODI.., i.e. 'Florent Berthoult, Bishopric of Liege'. Florent (or Floris) Berthoult ... c.1275 - 1331+, was among the leading potentates in the region, and Malines acknowledged the authority of the bishop-princes of Liege from 1305 onwards. ... Another of these seals with Berthoult's name was excavated in London in a deposit attributed to the late fourteenth century."
Today Malines, now known as Mechelen, is a Dutch speaking city in Belgium. Modern Belgium was not formed until 1830. At the time of this seal Malines was part of a smaller state, see MECHELEN: History and History of Belgium.
