14 



nevertheless was first given in marriasfe by her 

 father, nn East Ant^lian King', to one of 

 his aldermen, and alter wards when a 

 widow, t' Egfrid, King of Northumbria. 

 The " tokens " or " signalles " such as we see in 

 our own collection, appear to have been cast in 

 stone moulds such as that which has been so 

 fortunately preserved at tlie British Museum, 

 A cast from this mould would represent an 

 equestrian image of St, Thomas surrounded by a 

 ring of leaves and lilies, which was probably 

 intended for a brooch. The use of metal for our 

 Canterbury signs, the most prized of which for 

 many years was an ampulla or bottle for con- 

 taining the sacred water which had once 

 contained some of the blood of St. 

 Thomas, and which still continued to be tinged 

 with colour, is said to have been the invention of 

 a young plumber in the City, who seems to have 

 realized that the box-wood which had been 

 formerly in ute wa= not altogether satisfactory 

 HS a permanent preservative of liquid. A unique 

 specimen of these small wooden boxes or phials 

 was discovered in 1.S40 walled up behind what 

 seems to be a half-length female figure 

 carved in Caen stone in the church at 

 Kewstoke, clu9e to Weston-super-Mare. This 

 reliquary, prubably once in the possession of 

 the neighbouring monastery of Woodspring, 

 dedicated, among other saints, to St. Thomas 

 himself, spems to have been removed at the 

 dissolution to the church at Kewstoke, and 

 is now in the Museum at Taunton. At most hallows 

 the signs were probably manufactured under the 

 superintendence of, if not actually by, the monks 

 themselves. When, for instance, the shrine of 

 Our Lady of Walsingham was destroyed by 

 Henry VIII. in 1536, we are told that "a secret 

 private place was discovered in which there are 

 pottes and instruments and bellows and other 

 things to sort — there was Udthing wanting that 

 should belong to the art of multiplying." It was, 

 in fact, doubtless the casting room in which the 

 Walsingham signs were multiplied. The hint 

 that other things besides pilgrims signs were 

 coined in that secret room is merely characteristic 

 of the times. It was said that in Canterbury all 

 the implements for making the signs were 

 actually in existence as late as only fifty years 

 ago. It would be interesting to know what has 

 become of them, they would be a valuable addition 

 to the National collecti-n. It can only be a 

 matter of geneinl regret that so few even of the 

 pilgrim-tokens themselves have come down to us. 

 They must have been produced rather bj millions 

 than by thousands, and yet except in the British, 

 our own, and one or two other museums, and in 

 some three or four private C"lU'ctions. of which I 

 believe that of my uncle—Sir John Evans— and 

 my own are the largest ; they may be said to be 

 non-existent. The demand for these little signs 

 throughout the middle-ages must have bten 

 enormous. We remember how the " garb " of a 

 single pilgrim, the friend of Erasmus, appeared 

 to be covered with them, j»nd in an equally graphic 

 account in thfi vision of Piers the Plowman, written 

 about the year 1370. we read that pilgrims* signs 

 were as highly valued by the Palmer in the four- 



teenth century as they were in the sixteenth. 

 Appaielled in pilgrim's weeds he bare a bordoa 

 (staflF) {ybound round about with bind-weed), a 

 bowl and a bag, he bare by his side, an hundred 

 ampuliis ; on his hat were set signs of Sinay and 

 shells ot Gahce, and many a cross on his cloak, 

 and keys of Rome and ye vernicle betore. For 

 men should know and see by his signs from 

 whence he came. From Sinay, he said, and from 

 the Lord's sepubhre in Bethlehem, and in Babylon. 

 I have been in both Erminic and Alisandese, in 

 many other places : ye may see by my signs that 

 sitt in my hat that I have walked full wide, 

 in wet and in dry, and sought good f-aints 

 for my soul's health. There were count- 

 less reasons for wishing to possess these 

 outward signs of pilgrimage, apart from the 

 personal desire of the pilgrim to acquire them 

 tor himself. There were often sick friends at home 

 unable to sustain the fatigues of the journey — 

 friends in health even would appreciate such a 

 gift as some of the holy water, whose miraculous 

 powers were not confined to the mere healing of 

 the sick, or of a talisman which insured immunity 

 from pes-tilence and the dangers of war and earth- 

 quake. It has been hinted, too, that even wives 

 and husbands in those early days were occasionally 

 not altogether displeased to receive their actual 

 evidence that the long absence from home had not 

 been spent otherwise than devoutly. Of those 

 signs in our own collection most of them were 

 found in the, Thames or in the bed of our own 

 river ^ and it is a curious fact that among those at 

 the British Museum and elsewhere the majority 

 of specimens tiave been dredged up in London or 

 (ther waters, notably the Seine and the Somme 

 in the neighbourhood of the larger towns. The 

 Canterbury signs, the ampulla* are really the more 

 interesting. They were often of considerable size 

 and their torms were unusually artistic. Among 

 those which have been preserved one in the British 

 Museum surrounded by a delicate tiacery is em- 

 bossed on one side with a figure of St. Thomas, on 

 the other with the scene of the martyrdom. Of 

 lht.se in our own collection one is inscribed Beg- 

 inaldus Filiits Hurs, Thome martyriuni fece fr 

 {fieri fecit) (Reginald Fitzurse caused the martyr- 

 dom of Thomas). Another is enscribed with the 

 Leonine hexameter O'ptimns egrorum mtdicus fi.t 

 Thoma honorum. (Thomas becomes the best 

 physician to sick fulk who are good)." Am^ng 

 the signs a very favourite device is that of 

 the samt kneeling to receive the martyrdom. 

 Others represent him either mounted or on foot 

 giving a benedict ion. Many merely give the head 

 which is usually mitred. Others again consist 

 meivly of the Lombardie letter T surrounded by a 

 a ring. The name Thomas in full, too, frtqu^^ntly 

 appears. We have in our collection one of the 

 famous little bells inscribed Campana Ihome; 

 another has no inscription. Other Canterbury 

 emblem^ were the sword, the gloves, and miscel- 

 laneous memorials of the saint, some of which 

 figure in our own collection. And here it may be 

 noted how and why a bell came to be one of the 

 principal Canterbury signs. Doubtless, little 

 bells to hang on the bridles of p:igrims returning 

 on horseback, were among the tokens to be 



