200 Report of Meetings for 1888. By J. Hardy. 



discovered during the recent excavations. He exhibited several 

 interesting documents relating to Holy Island, amongst which 

 was a parchment roll (see Baine's North Durham, p. 157), 

 showing the descent of several properties on the island from the 

 loth century ; also the Division of the Common, and the Manorial 

 Charter of title ; and the Plan of the recent excavation of the 

 domestic buildings of the Abbey. Here is also preserved a small 

 circular headed grave-stone, 8 feet by 6A- feet, of the Hartlepool 

 type, of pre-Conquest date, which had been found in the church- 

 yard. This is decorated with a cross formed of lines with 

 concentric circles at the ends of the arms with the inscription in 

 two lines across — AELBEROT. There were many fragments of 

 coarse pottery; also a square stone incised with a circle, divided by 

 a line perpendicularly, and by another crossing it at right angles 

 so as to constitute a cross : the apices of the lines joined by other 

 lines to form a rhombus. It is of the size of a butter-print, and 

 perhaps had been one. There was a wedge-shaped stone like a 

 conical celt, but it was only a sharpening stone formed of the 

 trap of the island, from the "Whin Sill to the east of the abbey. 

 There were several slices of lead like those used for enclosing 

 glass, and some melted lead ; a few Nuremberg tokens ; and a 

 few copper and other coins, one of which carried a Scots Thistle. 

 Of the nature of these, Sir William Grossman wrote me of date 

 oth Feb., 1888 : " As regards the coins or rather brass tokens of 

 which we have picked up only .about half a dozen, I was in 

 Edinburgh the other day, and showed them to Dr. Anderson at 

 the Museum of Antiquities, he said they were no doubt Nuremberg 

 counters used as tokens — for money I presume — in the Abbeys 

 of Scotland— on one was the name of the maker, who, Dr. 

 Anderson said, was known to be such RANNSKRRA VWINKEL. 

 Many of the legends were as you say [Sir William had sent 

 drawings of one] only letters or words to fill up the rims, 

 meaning nothing— 13th and 14th centuries. We found one 

 Edinburgh groat of Robert II., and an eighty Thistle mark of 

 James VI. The only other piece was a foreign medal, probably 

 of about the time of the Reformation. On one side is the Pope, 

 who on being turned upside down became His Satanic Majesty — 

 with the legend Ecclesia perversa tenet pactum diabolo : and 

 on the other a cowled monk, who on being turned upside down 

 became a fool with cap and bells ; and the legend Papientes 

 aliquondam Stulti. But little has been found — everything 



