Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/376

346 Dean, which is also a pointed ellipse, is a bird resembling a crow, and round it S' DЄCĀNI BRISTOLLI ; and on the seal of the Vicar, which is round, is a human head, and about it S' DNI STЄPHI DЄ NOVSHĀL'. Noushall was probably Gnoushall, now Gnosall, in Staffordshire. The spelling of this name in the document as compared with the seal is a curious instance of unsettled orthography. All the seals are of green wax, and those of the Dean and Vicar perfect.

The excommunication, to which Hawisia agreed to submit, was of the more formidable kind; for there were two kinds, the greater and the less. The latter merely excluded from the rites and sacraments of the Church; but the former had not only that effect, but was pronounced with more affecting solemnities, and prohibited all dealings and intercourse with the excommunicated person; which was no light matter in an age when such sentences were carried into execution with considerable rigour.

The peculiarity in the form of the instrument may, I think, be to some extent accounted for. In the twelfth century a great contest commenced between the secular courts and the ecclesiastical authorities. Among other things in dispute was a practice, which had sprung up, of the ecclesiastical courts assuming to take cognizance of contracts, and to enforce the performance of them by excommunication, where the contracting parties had sworn to observe them, whatever may have been the case where there was not an oath. This the