Ladies’ seals are rarely discovered, but unearthed near Cedweli in 2003 was the copper alloy seal, measuring 43 × 26 mm, of one Clemence, Lady of Bois, wearing a full-length dress, with either shoulder-length hair or a head-scarf and holding an open book, perhaps a psalter. It dates from the second half of the thirteenth century; might Clemence have been the wife of an Anglo-Norman official resident here; Cedweli castle was close by; but holding a manor of Bois back in France? The Du Bois family were quite prominent. When in 1283 Edward I took the sons of David, the last native Prince of Wales, into custody, he committed them to the temporary care of one Reginald de Bois.³² The French legend reads:

S’ CLEMENCE DAME DV BOIS

Much, much earlier, was found near Oswestry, the seal of Hawys, Lady of Cyfeiliog – the wife of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, lord of much of Powys in the late thirteenth century (Fig. 14.21). The shield on the left bears a lion rampant – her husband’s arms; that on the right two lions passant – for Le Strange, her father’s arms. This matrix is one of two known bronze copies made in Victorian times; the original die is preserved in Shrewsbury Museum.³³ Why found near Oswestry? Probably because in 1276, Edward I gave her the manor of Church Stretton in Shropshire, giving her the need to travel to and fro. At some point on one journey she became detached from her seal.

Most matrices found are of the personal seals of unknown individuals. Occasionally, they tell either in the legend or by the device, the occupation of the seal owner. A good example is the seal of John the Carpenter (Fig. 14.22), perhaps of the late thirteenth century, and found at Llawhaden in Pembrokeshire in 2006. The legend is explicit, naming John the Carpenter, and the device appears to be a pair of dividers.

Found in 2011 near Sully in the Vale of Glamorgan was a copper alloy seal displaying four barrels with the initials, R.B. above each. Measuring in diameter a little over 30 mm and perhaps fourteenth century in date, it is perhaps the trade seal of a brewer – or the seal adopted by someone with the surname of Brewer, if not the occupation (Fig. 14.23). The latter seems the more likely as the Brewer family had their own distinct arms.

Many smaller personal seals give the name of the owner in the legend, but only rarely is it possible to link them with an individual known from historic documentation of the time. It is very probable that the seal of Meurig ap Adam found in 2011 at Kemeys Commander in Monmouthshire (Fig. 14.24), is the seal of one of the sons of Adam Gwent, who was steward of Morgan ap Hywel, lord of Caerleon, who died in 1248. Adam had several children, some of them illegitimate; and one of them was named Meurig and he was alive in 1278.³⁴ This seal would fit in well with those dates, and while the find was several miles north of the lands given his family by Morgan, there could be several explanations for that.³⁵ The seal depicts an octfoil, and the legend in Lombardic Capitals reads:

S’ MEV[RV]CI AP ADAM

Who engraved these personal seals? We shall perhaps never know, but two early fourteenth-century matrices seals deserve a mention. The first bears the name of Nicholas Chot; the second of John Aduvar, possibly a corruption of John ap Ivor (Fig. 14.25).³⁶ The first was found in 1986 several miles west of Cardiff in the vicinity of Bonvilston; the second sometime before 1958 by a gardener digging in the grounds of Cardiff Castle. Both matrices are of exactly the same diameter, 26 mm; and both have precisely the same floral device. They differ only in the legend, and in the material employed – latten in the first instance, lead in the second. It looks as if there was a medieval seal engraver in Cardiff, who prepared a number of designs, and simply added the legend on purchase.