SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 389 



the arms of St. James' Abbey, Reading : azure, three scallop shells, or ; 

 " Here I know not what secret sympathy there is between St. James 

 and shells, but sure I am that all pilgrims who visit St. James of 

 Compostella in Spain (the paramount shrine of that saint,) returned 

 thence obsiti conchis, all beshelled about on their clothes, as a religious 

 donative there bestowed on them." On another occasion the old 

 Church Historian suggests no unlikely origin for the escallop as the 

 pilgrims' badge, noting in reference to the Dacres Arms : gules, three 

 scallop shells, argent ; " which scallop shells (I mean the nethermost 

 of them, because most concave and capacious), smooth vdthin, and 

 artificially plated without, was ofttimes cup and dish to the pilgrims in 

 Palestine, and thereupon their arms often charged therewith." But 

 though the scallop undoubtedly came to be adopted as the general 

 badge of the palmer, its true heraldic symbolism is referred to St. 

 James the Great ; whence its designation as St. James' cockle shell, 

 coquille de S. Jacques and Pecten Jacohaeus ; and its strict ecclesiasti- 

 cal significance was as the memorial of pilgrimage to the shrine of 

 St. James of Compostella. Southey has translated from the Anales 

 de Galicia, the ancient legend of the Sanctoral Portugues, relative to 

 the origin of St. James' cognizance, and the miraculous conversion of 

 a Pa^rnim knight of Portugal to the Christian faith ; the truth of 

 which legend is avouched by the Bulls of three successive Popes, 

 which empower the Archbishops of Compostella to excommunicate all 

 who sell the scallop shells to pilgrims except in the city of Santiago. 

 A still more extraordinary and miraculous legend of " Saint Cock and 

 the Holy Hen of Compostella," derived from the Acta Sanctorum, and 

 other equally authentic sources, forms the subject of the metrical tale 

 to which the poet Southey has appended the notes above referred to 

 in vindication of Santiago of Galicia' s exclusive right to the scallop 

 badge. 



The poor with scrip, the rich with purse, 

 They took their chance for better or worse, 



rrom many a foreign land, 

 "With a scallop shell in the hat for badge. 



And a pilgrim's staff in hand. '^ 



For the scallop shows in a coat of arms, 



That of the bearer's line. 

 Some one in former days hath been 



To Santiago's shrine. 



From the adoption of the cognizance of St. James of Compostella 

 as the general badge of pilgrimage, the scallop not only took its place 



