Hi Helen,
Just a note. I found something similar - the shape of your seal (inverted trumpet) - in
Medieval Catalogue,
London Museum Catalogues No. 7.
London, 1940: page 295, Fig. 90, Numbers 1, 2 and 3. The text reads "The conical
handle with pierced loop is far the most common
type and is found with increasing elaboration from the 13th century onwards. Of those here illustrated (Fig. 90), however, No. 3 (A11711) is earlier than the more simple form shown in No. 2 (A 377). It therefore seems clear that it is not possible to date matrices with any exactness by the
style of their handles. The same is true of the lettering. The sequence
ran from
Roman capitals through Lombardic capitals to black (block?) letter and back to
Roman capitals, but beyond the fact that black (block ?) letter does not start until about 1345 precision is impossible." I just pulled the book off a shelf and don't know if it is online.
I also looked in v. Berchem, Egon. Siegel. Bibliothek fur Kunst und Antiquitatensammler, Band 11.
Berlin:
Schmidt, 1918. but found nothing, not even the shape of your
handle.
Does Burke's Peerage or a comparable publication go back this far?
Russ
