St Nicholas

Pilgrim badge or pendant, probably from the shrine of St Nicholas at Saint-Nicolas-de-Port in France. This openwork badge has a circular frame. Within the frame is a crude standing figure of a bishop wearing ecclesiastical vestments and a mitre. His arms are missing. Around the frame are small clips which would have been used to hold coloured cloth or paper as a backing for the badge. There is a suspension loop at the top indicating that this souvenir could have been worn as a pendant.

St Nicholas had been bishop of Myra in Turkey in the 4th century. His tomb was at Myra but after the town was sacked by Islamic invaders in 1087, St Nicholas’s bones were taken by Italian merchants from Bari. His relics were installed in a new basilica of San Nicola in Bari and soon attracted many pilgrims to the city. By the 11th century, St Nicholas had become one of the most popular Christian saints. The town of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port in France became another centre for the cult of St Nicholas from the 11th century after receiving a fragment of one of St Nicholas’s fingers from Bari.