In 1293 the Saxon and Wendish merchants at Rostock decided that all appeals from Novgorod be taken to Lubeck instead of to Wisby, and six years later the Wendish and Westphalian towns, meeting at Lubeck, ordered that the Gothland association should no longer use a common seal.
In 1368 the seal of the city, a double-headed eagle, which in the 14th century took the place of the more ancient ship, was adopted as the common seal of the confederated towns (civitates maritimae), some seventy in number.
The Cetacea, which frequent these southern waters, are represented by four species - two dolphins and the sperm and right whale - and the Phocidae by six species, one of which (Phoca lupina) differs but little from the common seal.
In witness whereof the Church Commissioners have caused their Common Seal to be hereunto affixed.
