We noticed that the heater shields which obtained so largely during this century, and grew less and less pointed as it progressed, at last became much squarer. The seal of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, 1372, might well be taken for the fifteenth century; the square heater, with blunt-shaped base; the inscription in Gothic, and curiously placed at the top and bottom; and the two supporting helmets, with mantlings and huge panaches, out of which appear below the hinder half of the bodies and legs of two animals, the rest of their carcasses being crammed inside these helmets. This is taken from the engraving in Herald and Genealogist, vol. ii, p. 56.
But from about this date downwards we can perceive much more discriminating taste exercised in designing seals. The seal of Richard Earl of Arundel, 1330-76, from the engraving in Herald and Genealogist, vol. ii, p. 54, is an example of such beautiful design and execution.[3]
The small seal of Matilde Fraunceys, relict of Simon Fraunceys, citizen of London, attached to a deed 33 Edward III. [1359], is a characteristic example of ordinary small well-executed seals prevailing in this century. The engraving is from the Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries, 11th Dec., 1856.
Some families seem to have taken a special pride in their seals. Those of the Bardolfe family of Wyrmegeye, Norfolk, continue pre-eminent for several generations. Occasionally one member of a family shows a seal of extreme beauty, the work of some "Strongitharm" or "Wyon" of those days, and in this way the centuries may frequently seem to overlap each other. Such exceptional seals show an execution, shape of shield frequently, and design somewhat later than their art-date, in the sequence we are endeavouring to lay down. Other such overlappings occur from the great age of the seal user. Elianor Ferre uses on a deed, 1348, a dimidiated seal, which was surely made about 1290. She died, a very old lady, in 1349. This seal is engraved in Archæological Journal, vol. xi, p. 375; and if you will refer to Herald and Genealogist, vol. i, p. 485, you will see a seal of Clare and Fitzgerald dimidiated on a shield of apparently identical date. The inscription is "Sigill-Elianore-Ferre"; so she used her own seal made in early life, perhaps dating from her marriage. The seal of Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Albemarle, used in 1292, is another dimidiated heraldic seal, almost identical. See No. 53.
Pointed heater shields with concave tops, suggesting their curved shape, are not uncommon in this century, and inscriptions in Gothic type became much more frequent.
The description of a shield which used to hang, before the Great Fire, in old St. Paul's, London, will be an interesting illustration of how shields were made in the fourteenth century. This was the shield of John of Gaunt (or Ghent, as it was originally spelled), our Duke of Lancaster, the third brother of Edward the Black Prince, and father of Henry IV. He was born 1340, and died 1399, so we may assign 1370 as about the date of its manufacture. In shape it is an oblong square with rounded corners and hollowed-out sides and base, while a very deep bouche is cleft into the dexter chief. It much resembles the "Gothic-rounded No. 12," but the base is flat and hollowed out. I am quoting from Bolton's Elements of Armories, 1610, p. 69:—"It is very convex toward the bearer, whether by warping through age, or as made of purpose. It hath in dimensions more than three-quarters of a yeard of length and above halfe a yeard in breadth: next to the body is a canvas glew'd to a boord, upon that thin board are broad thin axicles, slices or plates of horne nail'd fast, and againe over them 20 and sixe peeces of the like all meeting or centring about a round plate of the same in the navell of the shield, and over all a leather clozed fast to them with glew or other holding stuffe,—upon which his armorie was painted, but now they with the leather itself have very lately and very lewdly bin utterly spoil'd." This is engraved in Bolton's Elements, in Willement's Regal Heraldry, in Randle Holme's Academy, and in several other heraldic works. There is also engraved in Bolton's Elements, p. 67, the shield of Edward the Black Prince hanging over his tomb at Canterbury. This was of the egg shape No. 35; and in a circle in the centre were, on a heater shield No. 5, the arms of France and England quarterly with a label of three points; while around this circle the rest of the shield was embossed or "tooled" with an elaborate filagree pattern, and a narrow plain rim extended round the outer edge.