Devotional medal

What it is

A devotional medal is a piece of metal, usually small and round like a coin, made to serve religious devotion. Some are cast, some are stamped, and many are worn at the neck or fixed to a hat or the breast. The habit has old roots: amulets and talismans were common in the pagan Mediterranean, and Christians took up the idea with crosses, phylacteries and in time medals. Surviving pieces run from rough lead tokens bought at a shrine to finely worked silver and gold. Plague medals, papal jubilee medals, badges of saints and shrines, and counters with pious mottoes all belong to the family.

Where it comes from

Christians of the early church wore small objects for devotion and protection. A bronze medallion found in the cemetery of Domitilla, now kept in the Vatican Library, shows the heads of Peter and Paul, and Giovanni Battista de Rossi put its date in the 2nd century. From the 12th century, shrines sold cheap metal tokens to pilgrims as a remembrance and as proof of arrival. A letter of 18 January 1200 from Pope Innocent III gave the canons of St Peter's in Rome the sole right to make and sell such signs. Casting went on to the close of the Middle Ages, and in the 16th and 17th centuries bronze and silver medals took the place of lead pieces.

How it is done

The pieces are cast in metal or stamped with an image, and each carries a figure, a name or a short prayer. Pilgrims wore their tokens openly, on a hat or the chest; travellers returning to London from Canterbury around 1180 are described with the tokens of St Thomas at their necks. A medal could be blessed before it was worn, and from the 16th century some were enriched with an indulgence. Plague medals were struck and then blessed. A pierced coin might be threaded on a cord, as in the life of St Genevieve, where Germanus of Auxerre is said to have hung a bored bronze coin marked with a cross on the girl.

Tools and materials

Lead and pewter were the cheap metals of the pilgrim trade, with bronze and silver for finer medals and gold for pieces given as presents. Ordinary currency sometimes did the work: a common coin could be perforated and worn. Images carry the meaning, whether the apostles Peter and Paul on Roman signs, a saint, a shrine, a mystery, or the skyline of a city. Plague medals show Sebastian, Roch or a local image of the Virgin, and letters around the rim stand for Latin petitions for deliverance. Wax discs called Agnus Dei, stamped with a lamb and blessed by the pope, were worn in the same manner.

What it is for

The first aim is devotion. A pilgrim's token recalled the journey and showed that the shrine had been reached; the papal letter of 1200 calls the signs an aid to devotion and a testimony of travel. Plague medals were blessed in the hope of protection from disease. Others marked a confraternity, a religious order, a saint or a miracle. Many had practical work as well: jetons were counters for reckoning on a counting board, vouchers for attendance at cathedral offices, and stand-ins for money in games. Close to half of the surviving medieval jetons bear pious mottoes or designs.

Who does it

Popes blessed medals and attached indulgences to them, while clergy at sanctuaries held the casting and selling of signs. At St Peter's the canons held that right by papal grant, and the trade brought a steady income to shrines. Craftsmen produced the pieces. Pisanello (c. 1380-1451) set the fashion for the commemorative portrait medal, and in Vienna Antonio Abondio and his pupils cast religious medals of high quality. The wearers were mostly ordinary lay people, rich and poor, alongside pilgrims, canons and people of rank who received gilt pieces as gifts.

Peoples and places

The custom settled at Rome and Constantinople and at shrines such as Canterbury and Loreto. Rome kept a firm hold on the trade, the canons of St Peter's holding a monopoly from 1200. In central Europe, Austria and Bohemia were quick to take up the fashion, helped by Italian artists invited to the court of Emperor Maximilian, and Vienna became a centre for casting. France produced jetons and méreaux in quantity from the 13th century, and stamped pieces bearing the name of Jesus were handed out around Paris about 1429. In Flanders in 1566 medals served as political badges, and the Spanish side answered with a medal of its own.

What people believe

The medal rests on a Christian confidence that objects can be set apart for prayer. A saint's figure, a shrine or a mystery is pictured so that the owner is reminded to pray, and a blessing from a priest or a pope is thought to give the piece standing. When magical formulas were mixed with Christian symbols, as was said of Gnostic practice, church fathers of the fourth century and after objected, and some protested at phylacteries worn by Christians. Where a devotional object ends and a charm begins was argued over then; medieval blessing forms, for instance, include none for coins.

When it is done

Pilgrimage sets the rhythm: tokens were bought on the road and worn home, and their sale continued through the year at the great shrines. Papal jubilee medals, made from 1475 onward, belong to the jubilee years and were carried to every part of the world. The Feast of Fools and the Boy Bishop's day, usually the feast of the Holy Innocents, were marked with coin-like pieces that mixed joking with religious legends. Coronations and the Maundy brought struck pieces given as largess, and plague medals were made in time of pestilence.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Research on these pieces has leaned on comparison. Christian medals are set beside the amulets and talismans that Pliny mentions and that monuments show worn at the neck by every class. De Rossi placed the Domitilla medallion in the 2nd century, and other medallions with the two apostles' heads are grouped with it. Dating stays difficult: complex imagery, above all scenes of the Magi with Byzantine traces, may belong to a much later period, and single-sided pieces are hard to fix. How far medals were used in the early church remains unclear, and evidence for the Middle Ages is thin.

Compare and confuse

Medals sit in a line that runs from pagan amulets and talismans, through the phylacteries and encolpia (small crosses carried on the chest) of early Christians, to the blessed wax Agnus Dei and later scapulars and holy cards. Pilgrims' signs are the direct ancestor of the medal proper: lead or pewter tokens called signacula in Latin and enseignes in French, replaced by bronze and silver pieces from the 16th century. Related objects appear under many names, as jetons, méreaux and signs of lead or pewter.

Law and persecution

Papal privilege shaped the trade. The letter of 1200 from Innocent III gave the canons of St Peter's a monopoly on casting and selling signs of lead or pewter stamped with the two apostles, and similar rights made token sales a regular income at shrines. In 1566, during the revolt of the Gueux in Flanders, medals turned political: the Gueux faction used a struck piece as a badge, and the Spanish side replied with a medal of the Saviour and Our Lady of Hal, and Pius V allowed an indulgence to wearers who pinned it to their hats.

Questions people ask about Devotional medal

Good reading and sources

• Devotional medal on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data