107 



On a Seal of Goldingham Friury belonging to Mr H. 

 H. Craw, West Foulden. By J. Ferguson, Presi- 

 dent. Plate I. 



The Seal of the Priory of Goldingham figured in Plate I. was 

 purchased by Mr Craw at the sale of the late Mr Charles 

 Watson's books and MSS. in Edinburgh on 18th February 1895. 

 It was attached to a charter by John, Coinmendator of Golding- 

 ham — natural son of James V. — dated 12th March 1555, whereby 

 "in consideration of various sums of money paid for repairing 

 the monastery, ruined and destroyed to the foundations by our 



auld, enemies of England by our well- beloved 



James Auchencraw of East Reston," there were granted to "the 

 said James and Helen Rentou his spouse, and their heirs," 

 certain subjects in Goldingham, lying between the cemetery or 

 graveyard on the east, the tenement of Patrick Edington on the 

 west, and the public way leading to the church on the 

 north. 



Ten years before the date of the charter, the English, in 

 the course of Hertford's incursions, seized the priory, and 

 afterwards inflicted serious damage upon it ; but the statement 

 that it had been " ruined and destroyed to the founda- 

 tions," is a description of the occurrence largely savouring of 

 hyperbole. 



The seal was found affixed to the deed by a piece of cord merely, 

 the original attachment of parchment having been cut away. 

 It cannot, therefore, be regarded with absolute certainty as the 

 seal by which the charter was at first authenticated, but there 

 can be no doubt that both are of the same date. The impression 

 shows a full length figure of the Virgin crowned, with the infant 

 Jesus in her arms, each having a nimbus. The back-ground is 

 elegantly floriated. The inscription is : sigillum comune 

 MONASTERii DE coLDiNGHAME. Seals of this type do not seem to 

 have been used by the priory until after its severance from 

 Durham, and subordination to Dunfermline. One, engraved 

 in the Surtees' Society's volume containing the Correspondence, 

 Inventories, and Accounts of the monastery, is similar in design, 

 but the last word of the inscription is abbreviated to goldingham. 

 Another, closely resembling the Surtees' example, has been 

 engraved by Gordon in his Monadicon, p. 398, and by Laing in 



