MEDIEVAL AMPULLA

1300

An incomplete cast lead pilgrim ampulla of Medieval date, probably fourteenth or fifteenth century (AD 1300 – AD 1500). Length: 49.0mm, width: 27.1mm and maximum thickness: 8.6mm. Weight: 34.66g.The ampulla is incomplete due to an old ragged on the reverse side of the neck and mouth. Due to old breaks the suspension loops are also missing. The neck is relatively long and flares outwards and upwards from the body towards the mouth. Close to the surviving part of the mouth, at the top of the neck, are a number of indentations which may have been created when there was an attempt to crimp the neck in order to conserve the holy water. The surviving (obverse) part of the neck is convex.The body is roughly circular in plan and has a maximum width of 27.1mm. Where the neck joins the body the ampulla has a minimum width of 18.2mm. Both faces of the body are decorated in low relief. The obverse face has radiating lines forming a four-petalled flower motif surrounded by cross-hatching. Each petal has a central rib. However, due to corrosion and possibly deliberate damage the design is incomplete. The reverse face is decorated with a crown as well as cross-hatching.There is a casting seam which extends the length of the periphery, excluding the mouth. The ampulla has traces of a buff patina and also has patches of lead corrosion products on both faces. Very similar ampullae, with flower and crown motifs are published in Spencer 1990, 61, refs. 182-184.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).