C, 13th-14th century

A nice lead pilgrims open pouched shaped ampulla with suspensory rings at the base of the neck. It is decorated with a the ‘long arrow’ of Walsingham, with its tip in the form of a letter V, within a double circle, while the other side is decorated with the shell of Santiago Compostela.

During the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, pilgrims who visited the Holy Land were likely to purchase an ampulla, outside the shrines of a revered saint. These were a type of container filled with holy water from the same sites or oil used for lamps burning before important pilgrimage shrines. The lure of the ampulla as an object capable of bestowing holy miracles gave it the same appeal as a relic. Thus, when pilgrims were not wearing their ampulla around their necks, they were using the contents within them to try to administer cures.

Provenance: Yorkshire collection, collected in the 1990’s.

Ref: Similar example in Medieval Pilgrim and Secular Badges by M. Mitchiner, page 141.

A little bent with some surface marks and some earthy surfaces deposits otherwise good detail and intact.

Size: 54mm height