Cloth Seal, Lancashire, Alnage, Thistle

Cloth Seal, Lancashire, Alnage, Thistle, Image by StuE, Found by Stuart Wyatt.
Found on the Thames Foreshore, 20mm, 5.9g.

31 // crowned thistle (?) R to sides, COM LANCESTRY around

A complete, opened, two disc alnage seal for Lancashire. The rivet disc is stamped with 31 in a broken circle with other sections of a circle below and to the side. The rove disc and rivet stub are stamped with a crown above a thistle and R to the right.

This is from a series of county seals begun in the reign of James I with a crown-over-thistle design on one side, and often the weight of the cloth in pounds on the other, 31lbs in this case. See:- PROVENANCED LEADEN CLOTH SEALS by GEOFFREY EGAN, Sub-Department of Medieval Archaelogy, University College, University of London. submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 1987. p.150, "From the reign of James I (cf. Buckinghamshire no. 3938 for dating) are seals with: crown over thistle, IR to sides COM: LANCESTERY around //(Arabic numerals, 29 & 32 have been recorded); Presumably from the reign of Charles I are seals with precisely similar devices, apart from CR to the sides of the thistle. The second discs of two of these have 30, one has 31, one 32, and four 34. An example with 37 may have the same thistle stamp, but the monarch's initial is illegible. Here too the number is presumably the weight in pounds of the cloth."

The monarch's initial is also largely illegible on this seal preventing us from definitively attributing it to James or Charles, however close examination suggests the top of the letter I may be present, therefore James I is the probable monarch.