CLOTH SEAL

A Post medieval lead alloy Named Searcher's Proforma cloth seal dating from AD 1575 -1650. The seal is subrectangular, on the obverse the seal bears the legend RICHARD / FLETCHER / SERCHED (HE ligatured) all within a beaded rectangular border. The reverse has the proforma stamp LONG (31 1/2 incused) / WAIGHT (73 incused) / NARO (2 Y incused) (HT ligatured), in three lines each divided by a beaded line.

Another cloth seal bearing the name Richard Fletcher is in Egan (1995:No.244 Fig.33) and Elton (2017:243)

Dimensions: length: 33.57mm; width: 27.24mm; weight: 13.97g

A similar named searcher seals on the database is LON-394D97.

Egan (1992:86) writes "This belongs to a series of seals with rectangular parts, all having the full name of a searcher on one side, and on the other a proforma stamp for length, weight and width ('long, waight, naro') of the particular textile... The figures were added after examination of the piece. The specifications given on these seals are all around 32 yards long / 74 pounds weight / 6 quarter yards wide (cf. Hodgkin 1902, 103 and fig. no. 19). Few varieties of cloth were quite this heavy pro rata in the late sixteenth/ early seventeenth centuries; some of the products of Essex, Kent, Coventry and Worcester are the most likely candidates. This kind of seal was almost certainly used about this time in Worcestershire (cf. the round seals from there - like No.105 - which have figures of a similar order to those on the present example.... Most of the names recorded on these seals, however, like the present one, do not appear in the lists of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Worcester searchers (thanks to Pat Hughes for discussion of this point). Mr Fletcher's place of work remains unknown."

References: Egan, G. 1992. Leaden Cloth Seals. Datasheet 3. Finds Research Group 700-1700 Datasbeets 1-24. 1985-1998. Reprographic Unit, University of Oxford.

Egan G. 1995. Lead Cloth Seals and Related items in the British Museum, British Museum Occasional Paper 93.

Elton S.F. 2017. Cloth Seals: An Illustrated Reference Guide to Identification of Lead Seals Attached To Cloth, Archaeopress Publishing Ltd.