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

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，直到最近才被纪念碑和高地位的艺术作品所掩盖。这些由铅合金制成的微小而有形的物体提供了对普通朝圣者个人信仰习惯的无与伦比的洞察力。我的博士研究打算研究坎特伯雷收藏（CC）中大量的中世纪朝圣者徽章，这些徽章尚未出版，大部分未编目，在学术界相对不为人知。这些各式各样的纪念品可以追溯到1250 -1499年，其中许多是在斯图尔河的泥中发现的，目前存放在比尼艺术与知识之家。这些艺术品中的大多数都是与圣托马斯贝克特（坎特伯雷）崇拜有关的图像。1170年12月29日，贝克特在坎特伯雷大教堂内被残忍地谋杀。在许多奇迹的报道之后，他在1173年2月13日被封为圣徒。到1220年7月7日，他的遗物被转移到大教堂的Trinity礼拜堂的一个宏伟的哥特式神龛中，而他的头颅则被放在科罗纳礼拜堂的一个头颅圣骨匣中。贝克特的受欢迎程度使大教堂成为主要的朝圣地，吸引了来自基督教世界的数千名游客，直到1538年他的神殿被毁。这种对迄今为止被忽视的物质文化语料库--保存在CC中的贝克特徽章--的新审视，有可能为贝克特崇拜的肖像学的发明、变化和意义提供新的见解，无论是从当地的坎特伯雷背景，还是参考其在全球中世纪的广泛流行。到了十二世纪，基督徒朝圣时在到达目的地后购买个人纪念品已成为惯例。快速制造和廉价生产，它们构成了欧洲最早的大规模生产的例子之一。15世纪的《伯林的故事》（The Tale of Beryn）是杰弗里·乔叟（Geoffrey Chaucer）的《坎特伯雷故事集》（Canterbury Tales）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一件独特的物品：“每个人都把自己的森林放在他们喜欢的东西上。“这些“迹象”（他们当代的名字）不仅体现和见证了朝圣的完成;它们还可以表达获得它的朝圣者的身份，地位和个人品味。最终，毫无疑问，这些“迹象”是我们理解中世纪朝圣者习惯的核心。没有其他现存类型的朝圣者徽章可以与数量和种类的标志相媲美与贝克特的崇拜有关目前大约有275件物品在朝圣者纪念品的CC中，其中大约100件展示了贝克特的清晰视觉参考。他们需要一个系统的研究，包括每个对象的详细图像分析。从我的硕士论文，这是第一次检查CC直接延伸，我希望我的博士论文将有助于丰富的新的研究到物质文化，哥特式的图像，朝圣网络的交流，并通过密切和谨慎的CC的圣徒邪教的发展和扩散。

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intends to examine the vast range of medieval pilgrims' badges in the Canterbury collection (CC), which remains unpublished, mostly uncatalogued, and relatively unknown in scholarship.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.