Mass produced of tin-lead alloys and cheap to purchase, medieval badges were brooch-like objects displaying familiar images. Sumptuously illustrated, Medieval Badges considers all badges, whether they originated in religious or secular contexts, and highlights the ways in which badges could confer meaning and identity on their wearers.

Brian Spencer, former Keeper of the Museum of London, was a major scholar of medieval popular culture. He almost single-handedly established the study of pilgrim souvenirs and secular badges. He defined what these objects were and ascertained their function, manufacture, style, and iconography with a careful use of primary documents and intricate stylistic analysis. He identified every major souvenir and badge discovered in Great Britain during the last few decades. He also made prominent contributions to the field of seal matrices, gaming pieces, and horse paraphernalia. What bound all of these interests together was his understanding that the study of these artefacts could shed light on the beliefs and practices of a large number of people. This is reflected in the frequency with which his work is cited. This volume is a collection of essays written by those who worked with Brian directly and those with whom he corresponded.

First published in 1998, the present volume aims to help the researcher locate visual motifs, whether in medieval art or in literature, and to understand how they function in yet other medieval literary or artistic works.

The men and women who gathered at the Tabard Inn in Southwark in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are only the most famous of the tens of thousands of English pilgrims, from kings to peasants, who set off to the shrines of saints and the sites of miracles in the middle ages. As they traveled along well-established routes in the hope of a cure or a blessing, to fulfill a vow or to see new places, the pilgrims left records that let us see medieval people and their concerns and beliefs from a unique and intimate angle. As well as the most famous shrines, notably that of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury, Diana Webb also describes the many local pilgrimages and cults, and their rise and fall, over the English middle ages as a whole "Webb's scholarly achievement deserves high praise" -Christina Hardyment, The Independent