Apparent single-sided seal of Saer de Quincy (d.1190), depicting a figure on horseback to *dexter* (unusually), wearing armour and carrying a lance with a long banner in his right hand, and a large kite-shaped shield in his left. The shield bears arms of a *fess* and in *chief* a *label* of eight points; the horse’s *caparisons* bear the same arms. In the field above the horse to *sinister* is a small kite-shaped shield bearing arms of a *fess* between two chevrons, according to Stevenson and Wood perhaps representing his wife’s family, the Fitz Parnells.
Image description (reverse)
Legend (obverse)
SIGILL . . . . NC . . (“Seal……(Qui)nc(y)…”).
Legend (reverse)
Catalogue
P/Quin/2
Notes
Incorrectly identified by Stevenson and Wood as a double-sided seal of Saer de Quincy, earl of Winchester (d.1219). This seal was in fact single-sided, and its use in a charter (3/486/1) dateable to 1165×1170 in which the younger Saer’s uncle acts together with his brother, Saer’s father Robert, suggests that this was the elder Saer’s seal. This is strengthened by the equestrian design of the seal, which was unlikely to pertain to the young Saer, who was not married until 1190. Furthermore, the alleged reverse of the seal was in fact the counter- or privy seal of the young Saer’s father, and the present Saer’s brother, Earl Robert de Quincy.
Dimensions: approx. 2 ½ in. diameter.
SW III, p.551.