Plympton

 

From Monasticon Dioesis Exoniensis (1846)

Bishop William Warelwast of Exeter was on a drive to improve the standards of canons in his diocese. In 1121 he disbanded the secular college founded by the Anglo-Saxons and instituted an Augustinian house, the Priory of St Peter and St Paul, using canons from Holy Trinity, Aldgate, and Merton Priory.  It's probable that one of those Merton canons was a chap called Geoffrey, who in 1130 or so became prior.  The history of Plympton is here, and de Gray Birch's description of the seals here.

The priory seal is 13th-century.  Peter and Paul sit on a bench or throne, with beaded nimbus and books, and their symbols.  They sit atop a lovely carved corbel of foliage.  The inscription Birch notes as

SIGILLVM : ECCLESIE : AP'LOR …..RI : ET : PAVLI : DE : PLIMTONA.

But surely that must be A PRIORATU SANCTE PETRI ET PAVLI.

He describes its counterseal - BVM, crowned and throned, the Child on left knee; in right hand an orb topped with a fleur-de-lis on which a bird perches.  + SIGNVM : SANCTE : MARIE : DE : PLIMTONA.  Mary was the most popular saint for Austin houses. 

Continuing the Marian theme, Prior Richard de Tregony's seal (1280) has a half-length BVM, with Child on left arm, under an arch of five cusps; below, two quadrilobes containing on the left, St Paul's bust, with a sword and over the head an estoile; on the right, St Peter's, with keys and over the head a crescent. In base, under a pointed and trefoiled arch, the Prior, kneeling in prayer.  The quadrilobes sound very similar to the windows on Merton's seal. Merton held land in Tregony, and indeed its prior in the 1290s was Nicholas Tregony - perhaps some relation to Richard.  I'll try to get a picture of this seal.

Plympton's seal, I feel, needs the caption 'And it's goodnight from him...'