arned, were more pictorial in character. Dr. Barrington, in his
"Lectures on Heraldry," defines merchants' marks as "various fanciful
forms, distorted representations of _initials of names_," which, he
says, were "placed upon articles of merchandise, because armorial
ensigns could not have been so placed without debasement."

To those merchants who had no arms--and they were doubtless the vast
majority--the mark served as a substitute, and was regarded with the
same feelings of pride and attachment as the ensigns of the nobility and
gentry. But unquestionably its chief value was strictly commercial, as
is proved by an instance of litigation in the twenty-second year of
Queen Elizabeth's reign, which is thus narrated by Mr. Justice
Doddridge: "An action was brought upon the case in common pleas by a
clothier, that, whereas he had gained reputation by the making of his
cloth, by reason whereof he had great utterance to his great benefit and
profit, and that he used to set his mark to his cloth, another clothier,
perceiving it, used the same mark to his ill-made cloth on purpose to
deceive him, and it was resolved that an action did lie."

Merchants' marks appear to have been especially common in towns
depending on the manufacture of wool. It so happens that one of those
towns was that in the immediate neighbourhood of which these chapters
were written; and, agreeably to what has been stated, the Church of St.
Peter, Tiverton, which owed much to the munificence of the old
merchants, carries a number of such marks. East Anglia is particularly
rich in such marks, as is shown by Mr. W. C. Ewing's papers in the
"Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society" (vol.
iii.). Mr. Dawson Turner, in his Historical Introduction to Colman's
"Engravings of Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk and Suffolk," after stating
that merchants or burgesses were probably the only classes except the
military that were represented on monuments, goes on to observe that
"these are chiefly to be found in borough towns or the parochial
churches of large commercial counties where the woollen manufacture
flourished." And, as we have pointed out, the merchant's mark very often
accompanied him to his grave.

We have now reached the borderland, where from urban customs we pass to
those of the country; and it will form a natural transition if we
conclude the chapter and the section with some remarks on the rural use
of marks, which is still commo