small crown on the inner border[1]." From the description of these marks it may be conjectured with probability that they were simply assay stamps; and as the Southampton seal is of silver, we may thus account for the presence of these devices on it, as well as on like seals of the same and earlier periods. Mr. Turner remarked, that in the same inventory were mentioned "a charger of silver, marked on the inner bordure with ostrich feathers, and two silver basins with ostrich plumes on the inner bottom." These were old articles, since it appears they were sold to William Fitzhugh, goldsmith, to be made into new vessels.
It has been suggested that the inscribed rings, apparently used as physical charms, of the description noticed in the last volume of the Archæological Journal[2], may have been some of the "medycinable rings of gold and silver" fabricated, as we learn from the Household Books of Henry IV. and Edward IV. from the king's offering to the cross on Good Friday. The following entry occurs in the accounts of the 7th and 8th years of Henry IV. (1406.)
"In oblacionibus domini regis factis adorando crucem in capella infra manerium suum de Eltham, die parasceves, in precio trium nobilium auri, et v. solidorum sterlyng. xxv.s.
"In denariis solutis pro eisdem oblacionibus reassumptis, pro anulis medicinalibus inde faciendis, xxv.s."
A ring, considered to possess some healing or talismanic virtues, was also termed, in medieval Latin, vertuosus. Thus Thomas de Hoton, rector of Kyrkebymisperton, 1351, bequeathed to his chaplain "j. zonam de serico, j. bonam bursam, j. firmaculum, et j. anulum vertuosum. Item, domino Thome de Bouthum j. par de bedes de corall, j. anulum vertuosum[3]."
Another example of the mystic word, or anagram, agla, which occurs in a charm given in an English medical MS. in the royal library at Stockholm, and on medieval ornaments previously noticed in the Journal, has been communicated by Mr. Thomas Niblett, of Haresfield Court, Gloucester. It is engraved on the inner side of a plain silver ring, (of the fourteenth century?) found during the last year on the finger of a skeleton, on the site of the cemetery of St. Owen's, which "stood on the west site of Gloucester, a little without the south-gate[4]," and was destroyed during the siege in 1643. On the outside of the ring is engraved + ave maria, and within appear the letters agla, with the symbol of the cross between each letter, as in the charm against fever in the Stockholm MS. The weight of the ring is 20 gr. Mr. Niblett suggested that these letters might be the initials of four words, as it is highly probable that they were[5].
Sir John Woodford is in possession of a gold ring, found on the field of Azincourt, which bears the inscription buro: berto: beriora. These
- ↑ Lib. de Hospicio Regis Henriei IV. sub annis 7 & 8.
- ↑ Archæol. Journ., vol. iii. pp. 267, 357.
- ↑ Testam. Ebor., i. 64.
- ↑ Fosbroke's Glouc., pp. 68, 188, 189.
- ↑ The term Agla designated, in the East, a wand of dignity or office, and may possibly have been used in connection with magical or alchemical operations. See Spelman, v. Drungus.
