PILGRIM BADGE

A medieval lead alloy pilgrim badge from the shrine of King Henry VI, Windsor dating AD1485-1500. This pilgrim badge is of circular, medallic form with pearled or beaded edge. There is a background of crosshatching with a pellet wtihin each square (diaper) there is the figure of a king, set against this background, wearing a crown shoulder tippet and mantle and holding an orb in his right hanbd and a sceptre over his left shoulder. On the reverse of the badge there is the remains of the pin for attachment, the majority of the pin is broken and missing.

Similar pilgrim badges are illustrated in Spencer (1990:53) with the above date range. Spencer (ibid.) writes " surviving examples of this type of badge are widely distributed. More than forty are known to have been found at London and others come from Marsh Chapel (Lincs.), Sandgate (Kent), Colnbrook (Bucks.), Southampton, Oxford, Ludlow, Bristol and Rouen. Two are frmo archaqeological contexts datable to the last decade of teh 15th century." Spencer also writes: "within a year of his burial, King Henry VI began to emerge as almost the last of England's medieval saints. When the Yorkist line came to an end at Bosworth in 1485, the pious followers of Henry VI found all constraints removed and their dead hero flaunted as the sainted ancestor of Henry Tudor. It was then that pilgrims flocked to King Henry's miracle-working tomb in St George's Chapel, Windsor. An abundance of pilgrim signs found in Salisbury and elsewhere confirm that for two or threee decades Windsor became perhaps the primary national pilgrim resort."

Dimensions: thickness including remains of pin: 3.58mm; diameter: 24.52mm; weight: 3.34g.

Reference: Spencer, B. 1990. Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum Medieval Catalogue Part 2 Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges. Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum: Salisbury.