AMPULLA

Cast lead ampulla dating to the Medieval period, (1100-1500). The bowl is semi-circular and the neck which has been damaged and is incomplete is rectangular in cross-section. The neck of the object has been folded back on each side to open the ampulla. The handles which would have connected the neck of the object to the body have broken away with just a small scar remaining on one side. One surface of the ampulla is decorated with a fleur-de-lis either side of which is one pellet. The opposite face is decorated with a crown above an open spiral. The edges of each side of the bowl is decorated with a zigzag pattern.

Brian Spencer, formerly Senior Keeper at the Museum of London, who made a life-time study of ampullae, has written: 'Ampullae or miniature phials were an important kind of souvenir. Generally flask-shaped, but with a narrow, flattish section, they were designed to contain a dose of the thaumaturgic water that was dispensed to pilgrims at many shrines and holy wells. Ampullae were made of tin or lead or tin-lead alloy and were provided with a pair of handles or loops so that they could be suspended from a cord or chain around the wearer's neck. Coming into use in the last quarter of the twelfth century, they were, in England, almost the only kind of pilgrim souvenir to be had during the thirteenth century. They were nevertheless available at a number of shrines, and thanks to returning pilgrims or to local entrepreneurs, probably featured as secondary relics in virtually every thirteenth-century English parish church.