Cloth Seal, Dedham, Alnage, RS, Image & Found by Russ Todd.
Found Beccles, Suffolk, ?mm.
Missing // RS, DEDHAM + around // missing // missing
An inner disc from a four-disc alnage seal for Dedham, Essex.
An alnager with these initials is known from other seals in this area, p.373, Elton, S., Cloth Seals, An Illustrated Reference Guide to the Identification of Lead Seals Attached to Cloth: from the British Perspective, under 'List of Alnagers Known by their Initials', "RS, Colchester & Suffolk [Egan, G., 1987 p.100, 114 & p.221]. See also BSG.CS.00030 & UKDFD 13912."
"Similar Suffolk and Essex seals for the alnager RS are known in London and from a wreck off the south coast of Norway, dated to the 1630s - early 1640s (Molaug 1980, 181-2). The other inner disc is known with a crowned harp or cock (e.g. for the latter M.O.L. ABO92 acc. nos. 789, 1051, 1055, the first of these being excavated together with ceramics dated to 1630-50)", Geoff Egan, Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum, No.100.
I believe this to be the first cloth seal of any sort recorded for Dedham.
