JETTONS FOUND AT PLYMOUTH. 
151 
The use of these jettons is not quite clear. They are pieces of 
base metal, or tin, intrinsically of very small value, and may have 
been used by the monks as cheques given out at the door of the 
monastery to the poor, and authorizing the recipient to a dinner on 
presenting the jetton at the buttery hatch ; or, on the other hand, 
they may have been markers, or cheques which passed current as 
arbitrarily representing fixed sums of money, and used on making 
up the accounts between the different monasteries. 
The jettons discovered were upon, or near to the actual site of 
the old Abbey of Plymouth, and other religious houses, and close 
to the church of St. Andrew, Plymouth. The legend cannot be 
deciphered, as the letters are very imperfect. 
The impression on the coins represents on the one side a ship, 
and on the other four fleiirs de lys in a square set on its corner. It 
is worthy of remark, that the seal of the Commonalty of Sutton, 
or South Town, now part of Plymouth, was in 1368 a ship upon 
waves, the legend being, Communitatis ville de Sutton su^^er 
Plymmuthy (Oliver's Monasticon Bioces-is Exoniensis, 130.) It may 
be observed that the present arms of the town of Plymouth shows 
four castles borne upon a ship. 
The two, and the only jettons found, being precisely alike, may 
perhaps show that the stamp in use in the Plymouth Monasteries 
has been discovered ; but this cannot be decidedly said without 
further proof. 
Wos. 3 and 4 are jettons of iSTorfolk, and are set out to show the 
similarity of jettons all over the country. 
The antiquarian will be interested in observing the singular 
arched chamber which extends under the building lately used as 
the Plymouth Corporation Grammar School, and which bears date 
1615; also, the curious covered way, which has been traced for a con- 
siderable distance up Catherine Street, and may now be seen, having 
abruptly turned westward, in the south-west corner of the arched 
chamber, tending to prove that there may be some truth in the 
legend that the Monastery was connected by an underground pas- 
sage, — in the one way extending to under the Hoe, and in the 
other to outside the old Frankfort Gate. The directions indicated 
by the covered way would exactly suit the tradition. 
E. G. Bennett. 
March 22nd, 1871. 
U 2 
