Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/431

 EXAMPLES OF MEDIAEVAL SEALS. We resume with satisfaction the contributions to the history of mediicval seals, encouraged by increasing interest in researches of this nature. The materials existing in this country are of great extent and value, and the opportunities afforded by the meetings of the Institute, more especially the museums formed year after year at each annual assembly of our Society, have drawn forth numerous matrices and impressions, which might otherwise have remained lost amidst the stores of private or local collections. In the present year, at the meeting in Cambridge, upwards of three hundred matrices were produced, chiefly Italian, but comprising also several valuable English examples, and presenting a remark- able illustration of this department of Mediaival Art. It is, however, from depositories, such as those of the collegiate muniments at Cambridge, to which Mr. Heady has been liberally permitted to have access, or the archives at Canter- bury, whence some of the following examples are derived, that we may hope hereafter to obtain our most valuable materials. The perfect security and accuracy, with which even the most fragile impressions may be copied by aid of gutta-percha, have brought within our reach facilities hitherto unattainable, 1. Seal of Alice, Countess of Eu. She was the daughter and eventual heiress of Henry, Earl of Eu, who died in 1183, or, according to Nicolas, 1194. Her two brothers, Ralph and Guy, died in her life-time ; the latter in 1185, and the former in 1186. This family held considerable estates in this country, as Avell as in Normandy. Her mother is called by the French genealogists Matildis de Longuevillc, but Mr. Stapleton has shown reasons for thinking that she was a daughter of Ilaniclin, Earl of Surrey, the second husband of the heiress of Warenne, and that she was, consequently, a sister of their son William do Warenne, Earl of Surrey. According to that gentleman Matildis, the mother of Alice, had first married Osbert de Preaux, and by him had three sons, one of whom, named Peter de Preaux, had a daughter Alice, whom this Alice, Countess of Eu, in a charter dated in 1233, described as the daughter of Peter de Preaux her brother ; and, as evidence that Matildis was a sister of William de Warenne, he adduces a charter of the Countess witnessed by him, in