Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/234

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210
PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE.

in the neighbourhood of Somerton; he also observed that the name Willem (vallum) had previously led him to make excavations near the spot where the coins were found, and many traces of ancient occupation were brought to light. The coins forwarded by Mr. Dickinson for the inspection of the Committee comprised a small brass coin, apparently of Constantius II., one of Gratian, struck at Siscia, in Pannonia, and one of Theodosius (?). In the Comb under Snap Hill, near to the place where these pieces were found, three stone cists were recently found containing skeletons in perfect preservation. They were deposited without any regularity of position, and the bodies had been enclosed with thin and rough slabs of the lias stone of the neighbouring hill, placed around them in an irregular manner. One skeleton only lay east and west, and no coins or other remains were found.

Mr. Dickinson sent also, for the inspection of the Committee, the brass matrix of a singular personal seal. It is of the pointed-oval form, measuring two inches and seven-tenths by one inch and seven-tenths; it exhibits figures of the Virgin and Child, St. Thomas of Canterbury, and St. Edmund, who bears an arrow in his left hand. Beneath is seen an ecclesiastic kneeling in supplication. The following legend runs round the verge, presenting a singular example of the combined use of Latin and English words —EDMVNDI THOME PRECE MATRIS CHILD LOKE TO ME. The date of this seal appears to be about the commencement of the fourteenth century.

The Rev. Thomas Mozley, rector of Cholderton, Wiltshire, exhibited, through the Rev. J. B. Deane, the brass matrix of a seal, found, five years since, in a field between the two parishes of Cholderton and Newton Toney, on the borders of Hampshire, forty or fifty miles from Chichester. The adjoining parish of Amport, Hants, is a living belonging to the Chapter of Chichester. The seal, which appears by the legend to have belonged to the sub-dean of Chichester, represents an ecclesiastic praying to St. Peter, the patron saint of Chichester cathedral. The most populous parish in Chichester, in which also the close is situated, is the parish of "St. Peter the Great, or the sub-deanery." It is a vicarage, of which the sub- dean is vicar. In the cathedrals of Lincoln, Exeter, and Salisbury, the sub-deans have estates held of them, as of other dignitaries. It is probable, from the evidence of the seal discovered in Wiltshire, that a similar privilege once belonged to the sub-deanery of Chichester, but no record of a sub-deanery seal is to be found. The matrix, now in Mr. Mozley's possession, measures one inch and a quarter by eight tenths.

Mr. Charles W. Goodwin, fellow of Catharine hall, Cambridge, communicated sketches of two coffin slabs, ornamented with highly decorated crosses flory, which were disinterred, a few years since, from beneath the flooring of the church of Llandudno, on the promontory of Ormshead near Conway. They are formed of blue stone, apparently a kind of slate, and the foliated ornaments, which cover the entire surface, are carved in low relief. The dimensions of the larger slab are 6ft. by 2ft. at the head, and 1 ft. 6 in. at the foot. The other slab measures 5ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 8in. at the