468 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
adopted, its age becomes determinable within a space of about fifty 
ears. 
On referring to Allemand’s work on the Monastic History of 
Jreland, published in Paris in 1690, we observe there a brief notice of 
the Dublin monastery, which differs in certain details from the 
account I have already given, based on the authority of Archdale’s 
Monasticon Hibernicum. Allemand states :— 
«« Aux Portes de Dublin et sur la Rivier Liffie qui y passe il y avait 
au Prieuré de Chanoines Reguliers de Saint Augustin qui fut fondé l’an 
1219, par un Seigneur Anglois nommé Varinus de Pech, et Vareeus 
remarque qui cette Maison fut depuis unie al’ Abbaye de Saint Thomas 
de Dublin de Chanoines Reguliers de St. Victor.” 
Rev. Canon Leeper and Rey. C. T. M‘Cready, M.R.1.A., to whom 
I am indebted for an opportunity of examining this seal, and of 
laying it before the Academy, have informed me it was supposed to . 
have some connexion with the Chantry of St. Mary, which belonged 
to our ancient Dublin Church of St. Nicholas Within, at present, and 
for many years past, inruins. This chantry was founded so late as 
the ninth year of King Edward IV., and printed copies of the original 
charter or deed in Latin have been published more than once. In 
point of date it is evident a chantry of the time of Edward IV. is far 
too modern to have any claim of ownership to a seal made in the 
reign of Edward III. 
To refer more particularly to the subject of emblematic representa- 
tions of a crescent moon and star. So far back as B.c. 390, we find a 
crescent represented upon certain coins of Beeotia, on which it figures 
as a symbol connected with devotion to ‘‘Aphrodote Melaina.” Again, 
upon other Grecian coins of later date, the conjoined emblem of a star 
and moon crescent make their appearance. Thus upon certain types 
belonging to Cydonia, struck about B. c. 200 (which are figured in the 
recent publication on the coins of Crete, by the authorities of the 
British Museum), both symbols are present. 
One of the earliest coinages in Ireland, struck by King John, is 
of special interest in immediate connexion with this subject ; it affords 
representations of a crescent moon associated either with a blazing star 
between its horns, ora small cross is placed in that position instead of 
the star, occurring on the reverse of the coins, and situated within a 
triangle. Mr. Haig, writing in the ‘‘ Numismatic Chronicle” for 1839 
(subsequently quoted by Dr. Aquilla Smith in his paper on the 
full-faced coins of John), considers both star and moon are symbolic 
of John the Baptist—a view with which I cannot altogether concur. 
Upon the surface of this early seal we observe four Augustinian hermits, 
looking upwards, and regarding a moon and star with every appear- 
ance of special reverence; and to this day, in different parts of our old 
Cathedral of St. Patrick’s, we are able to recognise identical symbols 
preserved intact on its walls. 5 
At the present time a crescent and star would become associated in 
the minds of the public with its appearance on a Turkish standard, and 
