Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/443

 EXAMPLES OF MEDLEVAL SEALS. 379 The occurrence of seals of this class was inciilcntally noticed in a former volume of this Journal.'' We would here renew with gratification the acknowledgment of the courteous assistance of Mr. Cooper, Town- clerk of Cambridt^^c, who pointed out the date of these seals, provided for the purpose of authenticating passes of labourers on quitting their usual place of residence. Two other examples only have hitherto come under our observation. Of one of these, the seal of the Hundred of Edmonton, Middlesex, an impression is amongst the collections of the Society of Antiquaries ; the matrix of the other, the seal for the Hundred of Flaxwell, Lincolnshire, has been recently found on the borders of the parish of Fishtoft, near Boston.' The inscription is slightly varied from those on the other seals, (^ sigill. com. Lincoln, p'. s'vis. (lyro servis). Across the centre is inscribed flaxwell. We are indebted to the Rev. Edward Trollnpe for an impression. Possibly the hexagonal seal of the Hundred of Flegg, Norfolk, communicated by Mr. Fellows to the Norfolk Archaeological Society, may be of the same class, but its design is not in conformity to the statute. In the centre there is a Greek cross, instead of the name of the Hundred, whilst round the verge is — ^igillu tie )viOvt1ii* lucSt* flfne* Jlovf. (Norfolk Archeology, vol. i., p. 368.) The class of seals under consideration, although for the most part rude in their execution, may be regarded as of no slight historical interest, in connexion with the position of the lower orders of society, at the period to which they belong. The prevalence of vagabondage towards the close of the reign of Edward III. had caused serious disorder and grievous acts of violence, and these evils increased rapidly on the accession of his youthful successor. Many persons quitted their proper service and abode, on the pretext of seeking to improve their condition, and of these many had become robbers, without any fixed dwelling. The prevalence of pilgrim- ages had no doubt contributed much to this disorderly state of the lower classes. The determined struggle of the servile classes for freedom in the earlier years of the reign of Richard II., which led to the great rising under Wat Tyler, must be familiar to our readers. The position of the lower orders, the influence of the growth of manufactures, which drew persons from rural districts into towns, tempted not less by the induce- ment of higher wages, than by the boon of freedom which villeins or serfs acquired by residence of a year and a day in a town — these, and other features of that remarkable crisis in the conditions of the industrial classes in England, have been set forth by Sir Geoi'ge Nicholls, in his recent " History of the English Poor Law."** It was at this period, at the Parliament held at Cambridge in Septem- ber, 1388, that the statute was passed, which has frequently been re- garded as the origin of our English Poor Law, being. Sir George Nicholls observes, the first enactment in which the impotent poor arc directly named as a separate class. Its chief object, however, appears to have been to check the outrages arising from the itinerant habits of the tenants of servile condition, which had become a nuisance to the com- munity and occasioned a scarcity of agricultural labourers. A fixed scale of wages was prescribed by this statute, and all persons quitting their " Notice of Meetings of the Cambridge Thompson, Gent. Mag., Jan. 1855, p. 2. Anti(iu;iri:in Society, Archaeol. Joui'nal, ^ London, 2 vols. 8 vo. 1854. See vol, i. vol. vii. p. 106. pp. 47 — 60. ' See a notice received from Mr. P. VOL. XI. 3 D