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Description: | Medieval lead seal matrix, flat with squashed pierced lug at upper edge on reverse. Circular, 27mm. A bird (of prey, perhaps an eagle) statant close with a four-branched twig to dexter (possibly held in its mouth) and an obliquely angled branch above to sinister. + S' HENRICI : DE BILNEIE (Seal of Henry de Bilney). According to a feudary of c.1279 Henry de Bilney held a messuage and 15 acres in Great Fransham as a tenant of Adam Bette, who was a mesne tenant of John de Warenne (NRO MS 11352 T134D; NRO MS 13084 40A3). Henry was a witness to two Fransham charters of c.1273-90 (NRO NC360/18 and 19) and to an indenture of agreement dated 7 November 1297 (PRO E40 10519).Agnes and John de Bilney were rated under Great Fransham in the 1327 Lay Subsidy, but they are both absent from the 1332 assessment (PRO E179/149/7 & 149/9. Agnes de Bilney was rated in 1337 (PRO E179/238/111). William de Bilney swore fealty to the lord of Great Fransham in 1343. In 1349 John de Bilney had died without heir and seized of a messuage held of the manor of Great Fransham, and Clement, brother and heir of William de Bylney, was distrained to swear fealty (NRO MS 13034 40A1). The property of Henry and his descendants lay on the east side of Curds Green, c.1.1km WSW of the find spot of this seal matrix.The central device might refer to the arms Argent an eagle displayed Vert (armed Gules), borne by the family of de Bilney of Norfolk in the early fourteenth century (Corder 1965, 117 and Woodcock, Grant and Graham 1996, 135).
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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