What Did Medieval Travellers Bring Home? A Cheap Tin Souvenir
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Mass-produced metal badges sold at shrines were bought in enormous numbers, worn on hats and then thrown into rivers. They are among the most informative objects the period left behind.
What was being bought
The badges were small castings in a soft alloy of lead and tin, made in reusable moulds and sold for a very low price at the shrine itself. Each carried an image identifying the place, which might be the saint, a relic, a distinctive building or an object associated with a miracle, so that the badge announced where its wearer had been. They were pierced or fitted with a pin and were worn openly on a hat or a cloak, frequently several at once, building a visible record of the journeys somebody had made. Production ran into millions across Europe.
What they were believed to do
The objects were not merely souvenirs and were treated accordingly:
- •Contact with the shrine was thought to transfer some of its power
- •They were touched to the relic where that was permitted
- •They were used for healing, being dipped in water that was then drunk
- •They served as proof of a pilgrimage undertaken as a penance
- •They identified the wearer as a pilgrim, which brought protection in law
- •They were sewn into books, fixed to buildings and buried with the dead
Why so many end up in rivers
Enormous numbers have been recovered from the mud of the Thames, the Seine and other European rivers, and the reason is disputed in an interesting way. The simple explanation is loss, since a badge pinned to a hat on a crowded bridge falls off easily and thousands of people crossed daily. The alternative is deliberate deposition, with pilgrims throwing badges into water as an offering at the end of a journey, which would continue a practice of depositing metal objects in water that runs back into prehistory in the same rivers. The concentrations found at bridges and crossings are consistent with either, and most scholars now accept that both happened.
How they were made
The manufacturing is well understood because moulds survive alongside the badges. A stone mould, usually a fine-grained limestone or slate, was carved with the design in reverse, in two halves that clamped together with a channel for pouring. Molten alloy of lead and tin, which melts at a low enough temperature to be handled with simple equipment, was poured in and cooled within seconds, after which the casting was trimmed. One mould produced hundreds or thousands of identical badges, and workshops operated at the shrines themselves and in nearby streets. The low melting point and cheap metal are why the price was within reach of almost anybody.
What they tell historians
Cheap disposable objects made in millions are unusually good evidence precisely because nobody valued them. They map which shrines were popular in which decades, since the images identify the site and the style can be dated, which reveals the rise and fall of cults in a way written sources do not. They show that pilgrimage was not confined to the wealthy, since the price was within reach of ordinary people. They record shrines that no longer exist and images of buildings since destroyed. And a substantial group of badges carrying obscene and comic imagery, found in the same deposits, complicates any tidy picture of medieval religious life considerably.
The takeaway
Cheap lead and tin castings sold at shrines identified where the wearer had been, were worn openly on hats and were believed to carry some of the shrine's power through contact. Thousands have been recovered from river mud, by loss from crowded bridges and probably by deliberate deposition as well. Being cheap and disposable makes them excellent evidence for which cults were popular when, and for who actually travelled.