A cast vesica 'seal of office' matrix, with rib and suspension loop to rear; the incuse face depicting the Virgin Mary, holding the Christ Child enthroned beneath a Gothic arch, with supplicant figure, robed in habit, kneeling below, also below an arch; the seal bearing the peripheral inscription +S' ELEMOSINARII SCI AVGVSTI CANT (Seal of the Almoner of St Augustine of Canterbury) in Lombardic script; offered with a museum-quality impression and a printout of the PAS data record.

PROVENANCE:
Found near Wimborne, Dorset, UK, 2010; recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, copies of the PAS documentation included with the sale.

LITERATURE:
Birch -; PRO - (no record of a surviving impression from this seal has been located); see PAS record DOR-EF0D02 (this seal); UKDFD 27856 (this seal).

FOOTNOTES:
The abbey at Canterbury was founded by St Augustine in 598 AD after he was sent to England by Pope Gregory I to oversee the conversion of the English to Christianity; this abbey was the first such foundation to be established in Kent, on the site of an earlier temple given to Augustine by King Ethelbert of Kent (whose wife Bertha was a Christian) and also was to be the burial place for the kings, archbishops and abbots of Kent; the almoner to an abbey was an important office being responsible for the distribution of alms to the poor and needy (religious foundations were required to give over one tenth of their income as alms). This seal matrix would have been the seal of office of the almoner, used on documents relating to his official duties; such seal matrices rarely survive and almost all known examples are in public collections.