Pilgrim souvenirs
Some objects from the Cult of Thomas Beckett at Canterbury

In the later middle ages, pilgrims who arrived at holy sites and shrines would have been able to purchase souvenirs of their travels, including badges and ornamented ampullae (small containers to be filled with holy liquid). The production, collection and distribution of these souvenirs is an important aspect of the rich material traditions which accrued to the act of pilgrimage. These objects had economic, devotional and social implications, and give us an insight into how pilgrims engaged with holy sites.

Today, many of these badges have found their way into museum collections, having been discovered in river banks, waterways and sewers. The large number of these objects mean it is not viable for museums to place them all on public display. The Digital Pilgrim project in Cambridge has produced 3D digital images of a large number of the badges which reside in the collections of the British Museum, annotating them with key information.

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The pilgrims of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are bound for the shrine of St Thomas Beckett in Canterbury. A wide variety of badges depicting St Thomas and his shrine have been found in England and across Europe. The digitised objects on this page present three images of St Thomas and his martyrdom.

Image, above right: 'pilgrim badge', Museum no. 1984,0505.1 © The Trustees of the British Museum