Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/384

 360 ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE. The Rev. Charles W. Bingham, Rector of Melcombe Horsey, Dorset, has communicated facsimile impressions from seals appended to family documents in his possession ; consisting of the secretum used by Robert, son of Richard de Byngeham, A.D. 1318, bearing the grotesque device of a squirrel, with the woids ^ prive sv ; the seal of Roger de Manningforde, A.D. 1352, exhibiting the bearing, a chevron engrailed, between three roses, (^s. ROGER! .DE. MANX .... FORDE ; and the signet of Robert Byng- ham, 1431, an example of crowned initials used at that period as seals by commoners, the device being the letter R, the initial of his christian name, surmounted by a coronet. Also the seal of Henry Paris, possessor of lands in Bingham's Melcombe, affixed to a deed dated 1352. The device is an eagle or dove descending upon a crowned head, from which issues foliated ornaments : this is enclosed in a quatrefoiled panel, without any legend. It may possibly represent the head of St. Kenelm, king of Mercia, who was beheaded and concealed under a thorn tree, and discovered, according to the legend, by a miraculous ray of light which shone upon the spot. Lastly, the seal of Robert Byngham, who lived in the reign of Elizabeth, with his armorial bearing, a bend cotized, between six crosses patee, EOBERTVS BYNGHAM AE.MIGEK. Mr. Charles Jackson, of Doncaster, has sent for inspection impressions from two matrices, one of which, found at Finningley, near Bawtry, on the borders of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, is a small personal seal of the fourteenth century ; the central disc is charged with a rampant lion, not iqion a scutcheon, surrounded by the legend ^ s' nicolai de vesthovs, or yes- TROYS (?). The matrix is described as quite fiat, like a penny piece, with the exception of a little pro- jection near one side, perforated for facility of suspen- sion. Mr. Jackson remarks that he has sought in vain for either name amongst the possessors of lands in that part of England, or the names of homesteads. The termination, house, is found in several names of places in tlie neigh- bourhood, as also the names Westow, Westwood, Westall, Westby, Westhorpe, &.c., but not Westhouse. The other seal is of brass, found in a garden at Doncaster, and now in the possession of Mr. Crowcroft, of that town. The impress is a scutcheon of fanciful form, broken into foliated scrolls, supported by a single lion rampant, retrogardant, and sur- mounted by the coronet of a marquis. On the scutcheon are interlaced initials, L. B. P. or L. S. B. This appears to be a seal of the latter part of the seventeenth century, probably Flemish. About the year 1626, as Mr. Jackson observes, the drainage of the level of Hatfield chase, near Doncas- ter, was undertaken by Cornelius Vermuyden, a Zealander, on condition of being rewarded wilh a large portion of the lands reclaimed ; and a great number of Flemish proprietors and refugee French Protestants subse- quently occupied the district, forming a kind of colony for some time, Mr. Hunter has given a detailed account of the drainage and lists of names