Pilgrim Souvenir: Hood of Cherries

Abstract

This lead alloy badge from the British Museum represents a medieval hood repurposed as a sack for a harvest of cherries. It measures 38 by 30 millimetres and was cast integrally with its pin and clasp in a three-part mould. When first made, it would have shone like silver. Badges were purchased in their millions by pilgrims between the late twelfth and early sixteenth centuries, as attractive, wearable and cheap souvenirs of their visits to holy sites. By the later Middle Ages badges were also worn as general symbols of devotion, as livery insignia, and as humorous or amorous tokens; which of these categories the “hood of cherries” badge falls into is debatable. Five of them have been found: three in Salisbury, and another in London, while the provenance of the fifth is unknown. Their cataloguers reluctantly associate them with the cult of St Dorothy, whose emblem is a basket of fruit, although Spencer expressed concern that, “a fashionable hood seems far removed from her story.” There are also possible alternative explanations to its meaning, which will be explored here.