MEDIEVAL AMPULLA

1150

A fragment of a cast lead pilgrim ampulla of Medieval date (c. 1150-c.1350). This fragment is the lower half of the body of the object and has ragged breaks along the top edge. One face has traces of a flower-like design that may be similar to the design on ampullae found at Salisbury and published by Spencer 1990: 61 and 90. refs: 183-185. There is also a design on the other face. However, due to wear, this is indeterminate.The fragment is in poor condition and the outer surfaces have a grey patina. The base is damaged and the breaks are old.23.4 x 28.7 x 7.1mm. Weight: 10.94g.Brian Spencer, formerly Senior Keeper at the Museum of London, who made a life-time study of ampullae, has written: ‘Ampullae or miniature phials were an important kind of souvenir. Generally flask-shaped, but with a narrow, flattish section, they were designed to contain a dose of the thaumaturgic water that was dispensed to pilgrims at many shrines and holy wells. Ampullae were made of tin or lead or tin-lead alloy and were provided with a pair of handles or loops so that they could be suspended from a cord or chain around the wearer's neck. Coming into use in the last quarter of the twelfth century, they were, in England, almost the only kind of pilgrim souvenir to be had during the thirteenth century. They were nevertheless available at a number of shrines, and thanks to returning pilgrims or to local entrepreneurs, probably featured as secondary relics in virtually every thirteenth-century English parish church. Until the early fourteenth century, ampullae took various forms, were frequently inscribed and usually bore representations of the cult-figure or relic that they were intended to commemorate......Ampullae could be comfortably kept on the person or easily hung up in the home, or suspended , for the benefit of livestock, in the stable or cow shed or on the beehive. Ampullae were often donated to the neighbourhood, to be hung in the parish church. Almost as a matter of course, churches throughout thirteenth-century England secured possession of Canterbury ampullae containing what was perhaps the most famous of all elixirs, the water of St Thomas, tinged with the martyr's miracle-working blood’ (Spencer, B. 1990, 57-58).