figure of the Prior, holding a crosier, his eyes upraised towards the Virgin. On one side of this figure there is a mullet of six points, and on the other a flower of as many petals, the angemme of the French heralds.[1] The legend is as follows—✠ S' CONMVNE . CA(PITVLI.) PRIORAT' . HVRLEY. It is unusual to see a Prior represented bearing a crosier. On the seal of Lewes Priory, St. Pancras is introduced, seemingly habited as a Cluniac Prior, and bearing a crosier. (Sussex Archæol. Coll. vol. ii. p. 20.)
Madox, in his "Formulare," p. 250, noticed two seals of Hurley priory appended to a grant by Prior Ralph de Arundel, promoted to Westminster, A.D. 1200. This document was "in arch. S. Petri Westmon." One of the seals bore the head of the Virgin, around it—✠ AVE MARIA GRA' PLENA, and was inscribed —✠ SIGILL' RAD' DE ARVNDEL PRIORIS HERL'. On the reverse a counter-seal impressed with a lion —✠ ECCE VICIT LEO DE TRIBV JVDA. The other seal was inscribed —✠ SIGILLVM ECCL'IE SC'E DEI GENETRICIS DE HERLEIE. Madox does not describe its device.
In the Duchy of Lancaster Office there is a document, dated 34 Edw. I., to which is appended the seal of Alexander de Newport, Prior of Hurley—probably the same Prior who is named in Mr. Vernon's deed.
2. Seal of the Rural Deanery of Poulet, or Pawlett, Somersetshire, in the Archdeaconry of Wells. According to the present ecclesiastical divisions, this Deanery comprises the rectories of Bawdrip, Cossington, Greinton, and Huntspill, with the vicarages of Pawlett and Woollavington, with Puriton.
These benefices are found, under the head "Decanatus de Poulet," in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas IV. circa 1291, (pp. 198, 202). Under another head, "Decanatus de Poulet, seu Jurisdictio Glaston'," are enumerated certain benefices, with the pensiones therein, appertaining to the Abbot of Glastonbury and the Sacrist.
The device of this official seal is a figure of St. Paul, holding a sword in his right hand, and a book in the left; the legend,—*Sigillum decanatus de poulet. It is unusual to find a star, in lieu of a cross, at the commencement of the legend, on an ecclesiastical seal.
There appears evidently to be some connexion between the name of the Apostle and that of the place. The patron saint, however, of the church of Pawlett, according to the obliging information of the vicar, the Rev. J. D. Crosse, is St. .John the Baptist, not St. Paul. The Deanery probably derived its name from the principal place within its jurisdiction; but Pawlett has no necessary connexion with the office of Rural Dean. It is actually held by the Rector of Huntspill.
This matrix was found near Winchester, and presented, in Dec. 1849, to Dr. Mantell, by whom it was communicated to the Society. It is of yellow mixed-metal; there is a ridge at the back, pierced in the middle for suspension. Its date appears to be the earlier part of the fifteenth century.
Dr. Pegge stated, in his remarks on the existence of so many matrices of conventual seals, that "several rural deans' seals are extant."[2] Mr. Dansey has described those which had fallen under his notice in his chapter on the "Authentic Seal" of the Dean rural, which, in Bishop Kennett's- ↑ On the seal of Pershore Abbey, apparently of the same period as that of Hurley, the crescent appears on one side of the Virgin, with the star on the other; and in other parts are introduced a quatrefoil, a flower of six petals, &c. A curious example of the use of such foliated ornaments appears on the round seal of Westminster Abbey.
- ↑ Archæologia, vol. v., p 353.
