The Stafford Knot – a.k.a. the Staffordshire Knot – is seen in it's earliest forms on a 7th century sword hilt fitting from the Staffordshire Hoard, and a stone Anglo-Saxon cross in a Stoke-on-Trent churchyard, traceable to between 750 - 850 AD.
It is possible the Knot is an heraldic symbol of the Kingdom of early Mercia, or a Celtic christian symbol brought to Staffordshire by missionary monks from Lindisfarne.
Legend has it three felons, convicted by a Stafford County Sheriff, were due to be executed in Stafford gaol, but there was an argument as to who should be hanged first. The executioner solved the problem by devising this knot and hanging the three simultaneously.
There is a seal in the British Museum, property of Lady Joan Stafford (later Lady Wake), with a border made up from her husband's badge, the Wake Knot, made up from the initials W(ake) & O(rmond) intertwined. The seal clearly depicts a cordon of four knots in the shape of the Stafford Knot. The knot was passed down through the Earl's family; gradually used by citizens & freemen of Stafford; eventually incorporated into the Coat-of-Arms of the Borough of Stafford: the county motto being 'the knot unites'.
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