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please help identify this medal

Started by jsalgado, January 17, 2018, 04:19:08 PM

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jsalgado

Sorry, at this moment I have only the picture, no details


derek

#1
It has a lot of the british royal coat of arms with differences in the shield (french lillies)
a british lion on the left and On the right it is supported by the Unicorn of Scotland.
(The unicorn is chained because in mediaeval times a free unicorn was considered a very dangerous beast (only a virgin could tame a unicorn)
i cant read the tekst only sigillum which means 'seal'

Figleaf

The part I can read is SIGILLVM:REGIN(A?):IOHANNE:ANGELL: or seal of Joan queen of England. This points to Joan of Navarre. The left half of the arms, France and England, fit, but the right half doesn't and the letters are not medieval enough for me.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

FosseWay

I can get a bit further with the text:

SIGILLUM: JOHANNE: REGINE: ANGELL: FRANCIE: ET: DomiNE: HIBERNIE (Seal of Johanna Queen of England? France and Lady of Ireland)

I am a little perplexed by the misspelling ANGELL. To fit the form FRANCIE it should read ANGLIE, though ANGLORUM would work grammatically. "Angelus" and its grammatical forms means what you probably guess it means - "angel". Legend has it that Pope Gregory in the late 6th century saw some captured Anglo-Saxon children for sale as slaves and asked where they came from. On being told they were Angles (Angli) he is supposed to have said "Non Angli sed angeli" (not Angles, but angels) and arranged to send St Augustine to convert the pagans there. In other words, this is not an error that anyone with even the most dubious level of Latin knowledge would make in the medieval period.

I agree with Peter about the font used for the text - it doesn't fit the supposed time period.

jsalgado

Well, many, many thanks for your help!
unfortunately I was not able to find this seal in  Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum by W.de G.Birch.