Cloth Seal, Germanic Merchant's Seal, Tudor England Arms
Cloth Seal, Germanic Merchant's Seal, Tudor England Arms, Image & Found by Tor-Ketil Krokmyrdal.
Found in Norway, 40mm, 31g.
Crowned ornate shield bearing the arms of Tudor England (lions & fleur-de-lise inverted) supported by lion and greyhound, HONI + SOYT + QVI + MAL.Y.PENSE around // triple, five-petalled rose, 157 ER + DAN + SW... NIC... around
Thought to be a Germanic merchants seal for English cloth.
See Nos.348-9, Fig.46, Geoff Egan, Lead Cloth Seals and Related Items in the British Museum, Occasional Paper 93, "A number of seals of this kind, apparently consisting of two separately cast discs, soldered together when complete (i.e. making a single disc, perhaps for tying in place by a string through the centre), are known on the Continent. The devices are the arms of England or Britain on one side and a rose on the other. They have a wide distribution in the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, Russia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Finds in Hungarian military fortresses have been connected by Endrei with payments in kind of English kersey to garrison soldiers, and it is for this reason that Nos.348-50 are included as possible cloth seals. There is so far only one certain example other than No.348 found in this country (not in London, but in a field in Hertfordshire - M.O.L. acc. no. 1981.234 - which fits rather awkwardly with their suggested function in international trade). The legends with the roses often feature Germanic-sounding personal names and the legends sometimes appear to have been spelled out by someone whose native language was Germanic (e.g. connick for 'King', referring to James I). Several parallels retain traces of gilding."
See also Huszár L 1961, Merchant’s seals of the 16th and 17th centuries, "As to the place of production of these medals, the English hold the problem as undecided. In their opinion the medals were undoubtedly closing seals, chiefly for cloth bales but they had not been made in England. For supporting this opinion one of the principal arguments is that such medals have been found in several countries but never in England. Furthermore the aforementioned Hans Han medal, is entirely Flemish in character. Finally a medal has come to light near Moscow, of similar character but of later date (after 1603), bearing in its legend, besides the name of Jacob I, the foreign Flemish or German word 'Coninck' (König). All these proves to be a foreign production." pp.193-194.