44 
ON A 
Heaven “ Bulla,” found at Carminster. 
Communicated by the Rey. JouHn Baron, M.A. 
Wii HAVE the pleasure of recording the particulars of a Bulla 
eo \ entrusted to me for inspection and illustration by my friend 
and neighbour, Mr. H. P. Jones, of Portway House, Warminster. 
It was found on the 3rd of March, 1871, beneath a terrace nine feet 
high, which runs along the garden-front of Portway House, and 
lying upon the face of an old road or path which, previously to the 
formation of the terrace, appears to have run in a direction from 
south-east to north-west, that is, at right angles to the present house 
and terrace. It seems probable that the Bulla may have been shot 
down upon this spot together with the earth brought thither to form 
the terrace. By the term Bulla is here meant, not the classical 
Bulla, or hollow ball of gold, which was worn by Roman youths as 
a mark of patrician rank, but the ecclesiastical Bulla, or seal of lead, 
having on one side the name of the reigning Pope, and, on the other, 
the heads of St. Paul and St. Peter, which was attached to each of 
those solemn letters of the Pope, and which, from the attachment of 
such a seal, came to be called, in Latin, “ Bullae,” and in English, 
** Pope’s Bulls.” 
The Warminster Bulla is in good preservation, and, in general 
features, is like others which I have seen described, and several of 
various dates which I have personally inspected in the Musée Cluny, 
at Paris, numbered in the catalogue, 2507. It is about the size and 
thickness of an old-fashioned penny-piece, and, in the part of the 
edge at the foot of the inscription on the obverse, and under the 
chins of the heads on the reverse, are two pin-holes, about the eighth 
of an inch apart, through which have passed the strings by which 
the seal was attached to its document. It is said that in “ Bulls of 
