1356 seal of Eleanor Gorges, a sister and co-heiress of Ralph Gorges, 2nd Baron Gorges (1308-1344), and wife of Theobald Russell of Kingston Russell, Dorset. Traced (with design regularised) by Lobsterthermidor (talk) 16:30, 5 September 2020 (UTC) using Inkscape from photograph of seal supplied by British Library. Central shield showing Russell impaling Gorges (modern)/Morville, within a barbed quatrefoil frame, within a circle. Circumscribed with legend: Sigillum : Eleanor(a)e : Russell ("seal of Eleanore Russell"). In each of the four lobes of the quatrefoil a small lozenge-shaped shield of a widow, to the sides showing Russell, at top and bottom showing Gorges. Original red wax seal is in the British Library attached to her deed ("Cotton Charter XXIX, 37 Charter and seal of Eleanor de Gorges, 14th c. f.37"). Seal, fraction only, original diameter  about one inch, in poor condition, right half missing, and has been vandalised and mis-treated in modern times by having been set into a hot wax disc, supposedly to better conserve it, the heat from which procedure melted much of the surface detail from the seal. Described variously by:Horace Round, "Origin of the Russells": 'Seal of Eleanor Gorges Russell as a widow: Per pale dexter on a chief three bezants, sinister lozengy; between four small lozenge shaped shields of arms, the two at the sides (LH (sic) side wanting) Russell, the two at top and bottom Gorges.
Raymond Gorges (Gorges, Raymond &amp; Brown, Frederick, Rev., FSA. The Story of a Family through Eleven Centuries, Illustrated by Portraits and Pedigrees: Being a History of the Family of Gorges, Boston, USA, (Merrymount Press privately published), 1944, p.33): The lozengy coat appears in Eleanor's own seal of 1356 .... Eleanor's daughter, wife of Tibbot Russell, who dealed her deed in 1356 with Russell and Gorges impaled surrounded by smaller shields of the Russell and Gorges shields alternately
See also "Guide to seals in the Public Record Office, London, 1954;
See also British Museum Catalogue of seals, Vol.III, p.461, no.13.167;
Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes [1] Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell, (2 Vols.), vol. 1, London, 1833, Russell of Dyrham, p.156:  ... but in 1357, by her deed given at Somerton, on the Lord's-day next after the feast of St. Eadmer, and sealed with her own seal she released to John de Somerton and others all the right which by reason of dowry she might have in Hasilbere; seal described in note 5: A circular seal in red wax, circumscribed, Sigillum : Eleanore : Russell. In the centre is a shield of arms, viz. Russell of Derham impaling Morville or Gorges, as being perhaps considered more appropriate to a deed relative to lands which she held in dowry, of the Lords of Derham, than her own ancestral arms. At the four points around this shield are placed also four widow's scutcheons charged alternately with the same arms.
Own work
Lobsterthermidor (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2020 (UTC)