exhibits several varieties of shape, Norman and the Norman convex at
the top (Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4); and many of these are curved, so as to
partially surround the body. The great seal of Stephen represents a
pointed boss and a shield almost pear-shaped. One very curious seal,
that of Richard Basset, about 1145, merits a full description. He
appears bearing a kite-shaped or very elongated pear-shaped shield
(No. 3), about four feet long, and carried down to a sharp point. The
top is bi-lobed, like a heart, and it is strengthened all round by
a metal rim, while further strength is imparted by a boss or figure
like a simple escarboucle, carried out to the sides. He wields a
very powerful sword, with an extraordinarily heavy hilt, and with it
he cuts off the large duck-like beak of a formidable rampant-winged
animal like a dragon, and, apparently, thus frees a human figure held
in its beak. This curious seal is attached to a charter printed in
Blomefield's _History of Norfolk_ (see No. 44). The seal of Gilbert
de Gant, who died 1156, presents a shield more triangular than No.
2, and in the centre is a sharp pointed boss [_Top. and Gen._, i,
317]. The same boss appears in the seal of Ralph son of William, of
Dimsdale-on-Tees, 1174-80 (_Herald and Genealogist_, i, 227); also in a
good many contemporaneous seals, and it was evidently meant for use as
an offensive weapon. It is noteworthy that on the first seal of Richard
I. a spike is shown on the shield; his first coronation was in 1189. On
the second seal there is none; his second coronation took place on 17th
April, 1194. This may show the date when this fashion was discontinued.
In the seal of Sewal de Ethindon, about 1167, the curved shield of
Norman form, No. 2, runs down into a long point, somewhat twisted
round, so as to show down on the right side of the rider. It does not
protect his leg at all; in fact, the arrangement, to our eyes, seems
awkward and most embarrassing to the mounted knight (engraved Nicholas
Upton, p. 84; see No. 45). While in that of Sayer de Quinci, towards
the end of this century, a heater-pear shield No. 6 appears. This is
engraved in Spelman's _Aspilogia_, p. 67.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Plate II._]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The men's seals of this date which present their shields for our
consideration usually show them on horseback, fully caparisoned; and
many interesting details of spurs, swords, and arms are represented, as
well as the furniture for their horses. We are able here to show the
two seals of Malgerus le Vavasour, 1140-50, showing heater-pear, almost
heart-shaped shields. See _Collect. Topog. et Genealog._, vol. vi, p.
127, where the deed to which these are attached is supposed to date
between 1180-6; but Malger's son, William Vavasour, was a judge 1166-84
[Itinerary of Henry II.], and Sir Robert, the grandson, paid a heavy
fine--1200 marks and two palfreys--in 9 John, 1207-8, that Maud his
daughter [and widow of Theobald Walter] might marry Fulke Fitzwarine:
we have thus no difficulty in proving that the date of this seal is
_circa_ 1140 to 1150. We also give the beautiful seal of Egidius de
Gorram, 1175-80 [_Collectanea Topog. et Genealog._, vol. v, p. 187.]
The unmounted knight is represented in scale armour, kneeling, and
holding a sort of heater-pear shield, No. 6, with a pointed boss.
[Illustration]
The fields of seals are now quite plain, except sometimes in those of
ladies. In the first seal of Roheis de Gant, Countess of Lincoln before
1156, lilies are introduced, to fill up what would otherwise appear too
great a bare space. This is engraved in _Topog. and Genealogist_, vol.
i, p. 318.
[Illustration]
In counterseals of this century heater shields appear such as
are common during the next century. A most curious instance of a
pear-shaped curved shield, having a bouche cut into it for the
introduction of the spear, occurs in the seal of Theodoric Count of
Flanders, 1159, who wears tegulated armour. It is engraved in Oliver
Vredius, p. 17 (see No. 46). So far as we know, this useful bouche, as
a resting place for the spear, disappeared--to crop up again, as an
improvement and novelty, in the middle of the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: Harl. MS. Y. 6. (See p. 18.)]
The marvellous set of chessmen found in the Isle of Lewis afford us
a most interesting series of shields of this century. They are fully
illustrated, _Archæologia_, vol. xxiv. They give us the long Norman
pear or kite-shaped No. 3, the Norman convex No. 4, also a flattened
convex with rounded corners, and these shields are all long and
narrow, just wide enough to cover the body. There are many instances
of exactly similar shields. In Harl. MS. 2803, a Bible, written about
1170, Goliath of Gath bears a shield exactly resembling them; and in
the most interesting monumental effigy of William, Count of Flanders,
son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, who died in 1127, engraved in Oliver
Vredius' _Seals of the Counts of Flanders, 1639_, p. 14. He apparently
was a very old man at his death. He bears a shield exactly like the
Lewis chessmen in shape, but the face of it is filled up with an
elaborate escarboucle, carried out and attached to the rim, which
wholly surrounds the shield. Shields with the flattened convex top and
rounded corners, but of much shorter proportions, occur in Harl. MS. Y.
6. (engraved Hewitt, vol. i, p. 127), written at the end of the twelfth
century, and one clearly shows the curved formation which is indicated
in numberless seals and illuminations of this date.
The inscriptions are in Latin and in longobardic characters, but Gothic
letters are sometimes alternated, while in others plain Roman capitals
still occur. I have noticed one remarkable instance of an inscription
of this century, in Norman-French, around the seal of Alanus fil.
Adam, temp. Henry II. The deed to which it is attached is printed in
_Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica_, vol. v, p. 116.