Cloth Seal, German, Munich
Cloth Seal, German, Munich, Image & Found by Robbert Velt.
Found in the Netherlands, 14mm.
Monks head in cowl // missing but partial stamp on rivet stub, Gothic minuscule letter M?
See Maxim Mordovin, p.98. Fig.6., Bavarian Cloth Seals in Hungary, Hungarian Historical Review 6, no. 1 (2017): 78–106, "The most significant center for them (exporter of textiles to Hungary) was Munich, the cloth seal of which found at Castle Szitnya (today Sitno, Slovakia) was first identified by Ján Hunka. Since then, one more has been found in the vicinity of Szolnok and at least five at the market square of Pápa (Fig. 6a–b). The basis for the identification of them is a monk’s head on the obverse, which at the same time refers to the name of the city and to its coat of arms. The reverse of the seals varies considerably, presenting at least five different imprints: a stylized image of a church (a triangle or rectangle with a cross on top), a Gothic minuscule letter M, or flowers. Only the last type recurs twice. There is no convincing explanation for this phenomenon, but it might indicate that these marks were some kind of privy marks. The Munich seals found in Pápa can be dated predominantly to the sixteenth century, even if two items were discovered in later layers. It seems that no cloth from Munich arrived to Pápa after the occupation of the town by the Ottoman army in 1594 and its destruction during the siege in 1597. The seal found at Castle Szitnya has been dated to the fifteenth century. The last one from Szolnok is a stray find, but the characteristic late Renaissance style fonts from the fragmented inscription on the reverse ([...]HA) suggest a relatively late dating, maybe even to the seventeenth century.
Outside the territory of medieval Hungary, only two cloth seals that can be connected to Munich are known so far, both of them from the metal detectorists’ web forums. The monk’s head on the obverse is almost identical with that on the Hungarian finds, while the reverse shows privy mark-like symbols. Their dating is uncertain, as are their find locations."
Other examples are shown on Euro-Plombs.
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