medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
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Subject: TMR 08.03.11 Blick, Beyond Pilgrim Souvenirs (Lee)
Blick, Sarah, ed. <i Beyond Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges:
Essays in Honour of Brian Spencer</i. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2007.
p. 200. $80.00. ISBN: 978-1-84217-235-3.
Reviewed by Jennifer Lee
Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis
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Beneath a bridge across London's Thames, someone has scrawled, "Brian
Spencer Rules O.K." Rare is the professional scholar who has name
recognition, let alone admiration, among urban graffitists. <iBeyond
Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges</i, a self-proclaimed <iliber
amicorum<i/, is a personal and professional tribute to Brian Spencer
(1928-2003), former Keeper of the Museum of London, who not only
brought into being the modern study of medieval pilgrim souvenirs and
secular badges, but also encouraged nearly everyone else currently
working in the field. This volume's editor, Sarah Blick, was a
disciple of Spencer, and her 1994 Art History dissertation was among
the first studies to bring pilgrims' badges to an audience beyond
archaeologists. [1] This collection of essays broadens the audience
further by offering not only a tribute to Brian Spencer, but also a
demonstration of the ways the field has branched out in recent
decades.
I find this book to have two parts. These are not designated as such,
but are clearly discernable by their content. The first part contains
personal tributes to Brian Spencer as a man and scholar. In the second
part we see his academic legacy beginning to take shape. The first
part, as this reviewer perceives it, consists of the Preface, a
bibliography of Spencer's publications by Geoff Egan, an obituary, and
the first three essays. These first entries are quite personal, and at
times conversational in tone with grammatical quirks and fond
anecdotes. The writers convey genuine warmth, from which emerges a
portrait of an unfailingly generous scholar. In the latter part, more
scholarly essays advance the discussion into new territory. Pilgrimage
and secular badges are relevant to many aspects of late medieval
culture (and modern), and in this collection are studies that
investigate Spencer's subjects in broader contexts, and that begin to
tap the potential for using badges and ampullae as sources for other
types of investigation. Since the topics of the essays range so
widely, I shall briefly describe each.
Sarah Blick's obituary, reprinted from <iPeregrinations<i/,
describes Spencer's career highlights, of which I can mention only a
few. Spencer was hired by the Museum of London in 1952, where he
played a prominent role until (and beyond) his retirement in 1988. He
promoted interest in all types of artifacts from medieval popular
culture, and became internationally known as an expert on pilgrimage
souvenirs. Not only did he publish field-defining articles and books
on the subject that taught us all what these medieval objects were, he
also contributed to the body of known examples. Many pilgrim badges
and other small metal objects are discovered not through professional
excavations, but by amateurs with metal detectors. Before Spencer's
interventions, these metal detectorists ("mudlarks") were disparaged
by many professionals, so the artifacts they discovered stayed in
their own keeping or went directly to the open market. Spencer,
however, worked with the mudlarks, shared their enthusiasm, and
exchanged his expertise for the opportunity to study and photograph
the items they discovered. This is followed by a brief and eloquent
section by Spencer's son Richard Spencer, who describes the
temperament that drove his father's professional achievements.
The late Brian North Lee is best known for his study of historical
bookplates. He was also an important collector of English pilgrim
souvenirs, and as such befriended and admired Spencer. His essay is
predominantly anecdotal, though it does offer some new tidbits about
specific badges and ampullae. The tone of this essay is quite telling.
Sometimes while reading about pilgrims' badges, one suspects that the
author considers medieval pilgrims to be quaint and not very
discerning. I have personally sensed undertones of this in Spencer's
writing. In Lee's essay, it is overt. Near the end of his essay, he
jokes about "mediaeval gullibility," (15) and after relating the story
of the sixteenth century visitor who was shown two skulls of St. John
the Baptist, one as a child and another from his adult years, Lee
writes, "One wonders they did not also display a dish and Salome's
dancing gear. Oh yes, we needed a Reformation not long afterwards"
(16). Historiographically, it is important to acknowledge this
attitude, which may have imposed limits on interpretation, as we
proceed with serious consideration of the subject.
H. J. E. Van Beuningen's essay is transitional between the personal
memorials and the new contributions to knowledge presented in the
later chapters. The chapter is composed primarily from letters between
Spencer and the author, including early professional correspondence
and private communications from the end of Spencer's life. These
letters not only create a character sketch, but provide the
historiographic backstory to the emerging field of pilgrim badge
studies. The chapter also offers some previously unpublished examples
and ideas that should not be overlooked.
Brian Spencer brought wide-ranging sources to the study of pilgrims'
signs to determine their iconography, provenance, and to some extent
their use. His many years of publications, catalogued by Geoff Egan,
culminating in <iPilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges</i, provides a
foundation for all subsequent study of these objects. The lines of
questioning begun by Spencer continue. Questions of iconography and
provenance are at issue in several of the essays in this volume.
Simply identifying all of the known medieval badges will keep
researchers occupied for many years. Some of the following essays read
more as first steps than as final statements on their subjects, while
others are more conclusive. Taken together, they demonstrate the state
of the study of pilgrims' badges and related small objects, and
indicate directions for future projects.
The essays by John Cherry, Katja Boertjes, and Jos Koldeweij take up
the challenges of iconography and provenance. Cherry surveys the
depictions of St. James, the premier pilgrimage saint, on seals,
especially as the saint came to be increasingly depicted in pilgrim's
garb. Cherry himself declares the study to be preliminary. The
discussion opens several interesting lines for further explanation,
and should prove valuable for further studies of badges, seals, and
the iconography of St. James.
Boertjes makes a strong contribution with her study of the ampullae
from the shrine of St. William of York. Using both textual and visual
evidence, she makes a convincing argument that examples of ampullae
from York Minster were likely to have held the miraculous oil reported
to seep from St. William's tomb, and that the form of these ampullae
was influenced by the ampullae from Canterbury. Boertjes' entirely
logical suggestion that an ampulla showing St. William wearing his
bishop's miter with both points visible dates to the second quarter of
the thirteenth century, after the appearance of the oil in 1223, may
have implications for the dating of a number of Canterbury ampullae
that show the miter worn in the same fashion. Spencer had used this
orientation of the miter to indicate dates before 1200. [2]
Koldeweij's essay discusses a set of pilgrimage souvenirs with
heraldic motifs that he identifies as those of the Dukes of Burgundy.
He argues that they come from the Chartreuse of Champmol, where
pilgrims came to pray before a relic of the Bleeding Host as well as
at the tombs of the dukes. His proposal that the ampullae may have
been filled with water from the <iWell of Moses<i/ adds an
intriguing dimension to the study of this partially preserved
structure by Claus Sluter. Koldeweij has presented this argument
before, but its publication here in English makes it accessible to a
wider audience--appropriate since it concerns Sluter's <iWell<i/,
which is canonized in so many art history survey textbooks.
The latter essays move in interesting new directions. Mark A. Hall's
discussion of a Holy Rood Reliquary from the River Tay examines a
pilgrim's object in the contexts of the wider cult of the Rood, and in
the geographic context of Scottish pilgrimage, using the object to
forge a link between the local and the international. Peter Murray
Jones makes connections between pilgrims' souvenirs, amulets, and
medieval medicine. His contribution is important for understanding the
popularity of pilgrims' objects among medieval people. The essay by
Graham Jones is the only one to reach beyond the Middle Ages. His
description of the Catalan pilgrimage to Sant Magi describes physical,
temporal, and hagiographical aspects of a cult, and is part of a
larger, ongoing database study of European pilgrimages.
A discussion of tablesmen (game pieces) by Malcolm J. Watkins
hypothesizes that their imagery may parallel some examples of
Romanesque church sculpture. Their iconography may fall into
moralizing dichotomies and thus may link sacred and secular contexts.
Watkins' topic demonstrates the many uncertainties encountered in
interpreting popular imagery. Malcolm Jones' essay on the iconography
of cats, including the double-tailed examples found on badges,
similarly addresses the shifting meanings of images. There is also a
wealth of information about cats in medieval art, law, and folklore.
Anyone who runs up against a medieval cat will find something useful
here.
Badges of Thomas of Lancaster and Isabella, Queen of Edward II, are
the subject of James Robinson's contribution. These, he argues, are
political as much as religious. His proposal that some of the
satirical badges convey political critique of Isabella connects two
categories of badges that have long challenged interpreters. Political
context also drives editor Sarah Blick's own study of a large badge of
Our Lady Undercroft at Canterbury. Her comprehensive analysis of the
unlikely pairing of Thomas Becket and Edward the Confessor is an able
demonstration of the complexity of badge imagery, which has sometimes
been dismissed as simple merely because it was popular.
The book itself is quite usable. Notes follow each essay and
illustrations are placed near to where they are discussed in the text.
Photographs of small metal objects are clearly legible, or replaced by
hand-drawn illustrations where that is more revealing. There are a
number of small typos, but only one could cause any real confusion.
Koldeweij's name in the table of contents is misspelled "Koldweij",
which might inhibit some search engines (for a writer whose
publications are already listed under Jos, Jas and A.M. and Koldewey
as well as Koldeweij). One desirable addition would be notes on the
contributors. The book brings together work by museum professionals,
geographers, archaeologists, and university professors in Art History,
Archaeology, and English Language and Linguistics. The range itself is
interesting, and shows the cross-disciplinary potential for future
studies in this area.
This volume comes at an important time. Not only does it commemorate
Brian Spencer's seminal work in bringing pilgrims' souvenirs and other
similar small objects to serious scholarly attention, but it also
signifies a next step in the study of these items. Many researchers
are now dealing with pilgrimage souvenirs and secular badges, but
mostly with the sense that the field has been in its infancy. This
book demonstrates that there is now a critical mass of interest in
these objects, so that as medievalists we may collectively move beyond
perpetually introducing the topic to fully exploring the many avenues
that Spencer's work enabled.
Notes:
1. Sarah Blick, "A Canterbury Keepsake: English Medieval Pilgrim
Souvenirs and Popular Culture," (PhD., University of Kansas, 1994).
2. Brian Spencer, <iPilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges<i/ (London:
The Stationery Office, 1998), 41.
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