Picturing Devotion: Thomas Becket and the iconography of pilgrim badges in the Canterbury Collection

在不朽和高地位的艺术作品的阴影下，朝圣者徽章的研究一直是中世纪视觉文化中被忽视的领域，直到最近。这些由铅合金制成的微小的、有形的物体提供了对普通朝圣者个人虔诚习惯的无与伦比的洞察。我的博士研究打算检查坎特伯雷收藏（CC）中大量中世纪朝圣者的徽章，这些徽章尚未出版，大部分未分类，在学术界相对不为人知。这些纪念品的历史可追溯到1250年至1499年，其中许多是在斯图尔河的泥浆中发现的，目前存放在比尼艺术与知识之家。这些艺术品中的大多数代表了与圣托马斯贝克特（坎特伯雷大主教）的崇拜有关的图像。1170年12月29日贝克特在坎特伯雷大教堂被残忍杀害在许多奇迹的报道之后，他在三年后的1173年2月13日被封为圣徒。到1220年7月7日，他的遗物被翻译成一座宏伟的哥特式神龛，位于大教堂的三一教堂，而他的头像则被封在科罗娜教堂的一个头像圣物箱里。贝克特的声望使大教堂成为一个主要的朝圣地，吸引了来自基督教世界各地的成千上万的游客，直到1538年他的圣地被毁。对迄今为止被忽视的物质文化的新研究——保存在CC的贝克特徽章——有可能从坎特伯雷当地的背景和参考其在全球中世纪更广泛的流通中，为贝克特崇拜的图像学的发明、变化和意义提供新的见解。到了12世纪，基督徒在到达目的地后购买自己的个人纪念品已经成为一种普遍的做法。它们制造迅速，价格低廉，是欧洲最早大规模生产的例子之一。15世纪的《伯林的故事》是杰弗里·乔叟的《坎特伯雷故事集》的补充，该书的匿名作者暗示，中世纪的朝圣者将每个徽章视为独特的物品：“每个人都把银子放在他们喜欢的东西上。”这些“标志”（它们的当代名称）不仅体现和证明了朝圣的完成；他们也可以表达身份，地位和个人品味的朝圣者获得它。最终，毫无疑问，这些“迹象”对我们理解中世纪朝圣者的习惯至关重要。没有其他现存的朝圣者徽章能与贝克特的崇拜在数量和种类上相媲美。目前大约有275件朝圣者纪念品，其中约有100件在视觉上明显与贝克特有关。需要对它们进行系统的研究，包括对每个物体进行详细的图像分析。我的硕士论文第一次考察了CC，我希望我的博士论文能够通过对CC的仔细和谨慎的考察，在物质文化、哥特式肖像学、朝圣交流网络以及圣徒崇拜的发展和传播方面做出丰富的新研究。

Overshadowed by monumental and high-status works of art, the study of pilgrims' badges has remained a neglected field in medieval visual culture until very recently. These tiny, tangible objects made of lead alloy provide an unparalleled insight into the personal devotional habits of ordinary pilgrims. My doctoral research intends to examine the vast range of medieval pilgrims' badges in the Canterbury collection (CC), which remains unpublished, mostly uncatalogued, and relatively unknown in scholarship. This assortment of souvenirs dating from c.1250-1499, many of which were discovered in the mud of the River Stour, are currently stored in the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge. The majority of these artworks represent imagery related to the cult of St Thomas Becket (archbishop of Canterbury).On 29 December 1170 Becket was brutally murdered inside Canterbury Cathedral. After the reports of many miracles, he was canonised just three years later on 13 February 1173. By 7 July 1220, his relics were translated into a magnificent Gothic shrine in the Trinity Chapel of the Cathedral while his head was enclosed in a head reliquary placed in the Corona Chapel. The popularity of Becket transformed the Cathedral into a major site of pilgrimage, attracting thousands of visitors from across Christendom until the destruction of his shrine in 1538. This new examination of a hitherto ignored corpus of material culture- the Becket badges preserved in the CC- has the potential to provide new insight into the invention, variation, and significance of the iconography of Becket's cult, both from within a local Canterbury context and with reference to its wider currency across the Global Middle Ages.By the twelfth century, it had become common practice for Christians undertaking a pilgrimage to purchase their own personal souvenir upon reaching their destination. Quick to manufacture and inexpensive to produce, they constitute one of the earliest examples of mass production in Europe. The anonymous author of the fifteenth-century The Tale of Beryn, an addition to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, implied that medieval pilgrims viewed each badge as a unique object: "Ech man set his sylver in such thing as they liked." These "signs" (their contemporary name) not only embodied and testified to the completion of a pilgrimage; they could also express the identity, status, and personal taste of the pilgrim who acquired it. Ultimately, there is no doubt that these "signs" are central to our understanding of the habitus of medieval pilgrims.There is no other extant type of pilgrim badge to rival the sheer quantity and variety of signs associated with the cult of Becket. Approximately 275 items are currently in the CC of pilgrim souvenirs and about 100 of them display a clear visual reference to Becket. They are in need of a systematic study, including a detailed iconographic analysis of each object. Extending directly from my MA dissertation, which examined the CC for the first time, I hope my doctoral thesis will contribute a wealth of new research into material culture, Gothic iconography, pilgrimage networks of exchange, and the development and diffusion of saints' cults through a close and cautious inspection of the CC.