372 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



of the Order), or perhaps the model of a clmrcli. The outlines of the 

 figure are so indistinct that it is not easy to say "whom it is meant to 

 represent. I am inclined to think it is the founder of the Order ; for 



Fig. 1. 



he wears a mitre, and in his right hand he has a pastoral stafE, the 

 crook of ■which is turned outwards, which usually betokens episcopal 

 jurisdiction as distinguished from that of an ahhot, which does not 

 extend beyond his own monastery and its dependencies. 



The second seal is that of the Cistercian prioiy of Athlone. The 

 houses of this Order are usually abbeys ; but when the members of 

 the house are few, or for a short time after its establishment, it is but 

 a priory ; the authority of the Pope raises it to the rank of an abbey, 

 and gives him who is at the head of it certain privileges which do 

 not belong to the Superior of a priory. The date of the erection of 

 this monastery is uncertain ; nor do we know of what house it was an 

 affiliation. It stood on the Connaught side of the river, on or close 

 to the site of the castle. In 1216 King John gave the abbey four 

 carucates of land in exchange for the site on which he wished to 

 erect the Castle of Athlone. In the "Annals of Clonmacnoise," under 

 the date 1216, we read: "The English Bushop that was Deputy 

 (John De Gray, an interesting sketch of whose career in Ireland has 

 been given by Professor Stokes, in his ' Anglo-!N"orman Church in 



