Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/131

 12 S. IX. AUG. 6, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 101 LONDON. AUGUST 6, 1921. CONTENTS. No. 173. NOTES .-Curious Medieval Seals, 101 Dickson Family of Edinburgh Glass-Painters of York, 103 Heraldic, 101 Principal London Coffee-houses, Taverns and Inns in the Eighteenth Century, 105 Two Items Concerning Edmund Burke Washington Family : Origin and Arms Sound of Final " a " 107 Anglo-Dutch Relationships Opinionation, &c. Lowse Faire Bathwomen, 108 The Lancashire Hollands The Royal Route to Wey- n^outh Remember the Grotto, 109. QUERIES : Sicco Pede Babylonian Astronomy, 109 Thomas Gage Shakespeare's Cheese-loving Welshman Dairies and Milkhouses in 1594 and 1624, 110 Sixteenth- century Ewe's Milk Cheese in Essex Arms on Seal Campbell Shield of Arms " Floreat Etona 1 " A. Bryant Title of Book Wanted Books Wanted Hay ward's Life of Henry IV. Thomas Dickson, M.D., 111 Helen Dickson Charles Dickens in Cap and Gown M, Me, Mac Nautical Song Authors Wanted, 112. REPLIES : Gleaning by the Poor, 112 Brandenburgh House, Fulham, 115 The Year 1000 Milton and Elze- vier French and Italian Translators of Gellert, 116 Sundials Kinds of Bread in A.D. 1266, 117 Chewar A Curiosity of Endeavour The Plague Pits, 118. NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Prehistory ' ' Poems of W. E. Aytoun ' ' A Contribution to an Essex Dialect Dic- tionary ' ' The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians ' The Quarterly Review The Antiquaries,' Journal. Notices to Correspondents. CURIOUS MEDIEVAL SEALS. As is well known, the seals ' hanging from ancient deeds are sometimes unexpectedly original, fanciful, and decidedly non- heraldic. I find among my papers the appended examples, temp. Edw. I. and II., or early Edw. III., all of which are in the muniment room of Hilton, South Stafford- shire, a manor held since Elizabethan times by a branch of the Vernon family. Hilton was one of the many vills within the wide limits of the great moorland and forest tract of Cannock Chase, most, if not all, of which had been afforested by the date of the coronation of King Henry Fitz -Empress ( 1 1 54), and at Hilton resided, during the whole of the Plantagenet period, the Seneschals or Chief Wardens of the forest. The seals which I have selected are such as were invented and used, though not exclusively so, by lesser freeholders having in some cases no claim to coat-armour, by rising attorneys, by rich burgesses, or by merchants who had prospered and acquired lands, a class which in the thirteenth century was becoming increas- ingly important, as witness the Statute of Merchants of Acton Burnel of 2 Edw. I. The seals are generally of excellent crafts- manship, and in character some are senti- mental, some satirical, some humorous, some quaintly symbolical. The examples given here were, I think, in all cases the seals of men having holdings within the regard of the forest. 1. From a deed of " Ric. le Taillour " of Essington depends a seal showing an eagle with wings displayed and the motto Aquila volente (for volante ?). 2. Of another deed of the same Richard the seal bears figures of a man and a woman draped in long loose frocks reaching to mid-calf, the man bare-headed, the woman veiled, the twain standing face to face each side of a tall plant or tree of a single stem, which springs out of a heart in base and bears fruit which may also be smaller hearts, one in the midst and one on the apex of each of its two stiff branches above. Each figure grasps the stem of the tree with the right hand, and the legend is " Love me and I yew." The mystic meaning, if mystery there be, of the tree issuing from a heart, let the ingenious reader fathom. 3. Another deed has a seal of a bird perched on a tree-top, surmounted by the single word " Yay." This puzzle also I commend to the wise. 4. The seal of another deed of the same and a woman gazing at each other the man uncovered, the woman veiled. Between them stands a palmlike tree rising (as in No. 2) out of a heart in base. The tree has three branches shown fan- fashion, and each branch has three smaller branches, nine altogether, no doubt of some once -obvious signification. The legend or motto is " Je suis sel de amour lei," which may be rendered " I am the seal of affection leal." Richard the Taylor, a prosperous gentle- man, held some land of Sir Robert de Essington in Essington, a manor close to Hilton and well within the regard. He seems to have been a man of delicate vein and apparently, in his role of the constant lover, much beloved of the ladies.
 * Ric. le Taylour ' displays busts of a man