Folia archeologica 13.

L. Huszár: Merchant's seals of the 16th and 17th centuries

194 L. Huszár been found in several countries but never in England. Furthermore the aforementioned Hans Han medal, is entirely Flemish in character. Finally a medal has come to light near Moscow, of similar character but of later date (after 1603), bearing in its legend, besides the name of Jacob I, the foreign Flemish or German word „Coninck" (König).

2

2 All these proves to be a foreign production. As for us, we think the name „Guilhelmus" or „Guileilmus" in the inscription of the medals described under n

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s 11-—12 could be in this question another valuable evidence when the identity of the bearer of this name is once successfully established. It may, of course, be also supposed that it were the German or Dutch merchants taking over and then selling again the goods who had the medals made, much as the presumption is plausible that the said merchants perhaps used them in common with the English merchants for sealing their bales. As it appears these small medals are still offering many a problem. Summing up we may state that the medals have been found on the site of those ancient fortresses which played an important part in the border fortress fights against the Turks. Consequently they obviously were connected with the equipment of these. As among the equipment of a fortress, after the arms, cloth had a first rate importance, and as according to the sources available cloth reached us chiefly through Vienna and Nuremberg, the medals may be supposed to have been seals for closing English cloth bales imported through Germany. It still remains the problem to be solved about the provenance of these medals which by all means serve as a valuable material proofs for the better knowledge of both the fortress equipment on the one hand and the then prevailing trade connection, on the other. LAJOS HUSZÁR 2

2 Mr. Thompson's private communication.