What happens on medieval pilgrimage, stays on medieval pilgrimage (NSFW-ish)
The idiom used by rugby teams, rock bands, and Las Vegas holidaymakers can also be applied to 14th and 15th century pilgrims on their religious journeys. We’ve got surviving souvenirs to show for it.
Today, we have “divorced fun from religion pretty hard”, medieval historian Dr Eleanor Janega tells me.
But in the past, “everything was religious. It’s not possible to make clear distinctions between fun and religion, because religion permeates everything. Whereas today, because we have a view of what secular life is versus religious life, we draw very firm distinctions. But they simply didn’t exist in the medieval imagination in the same way”.
That’s not to say religion wasn’t observed seriously in this period – “that was an available option” – but it could also be quite fun, Dr Janega explains.
Case in point: the medieval pilgrimage.
“Everyone, from almost all walks of life, endeavours to undertake at least one pilgrimage in their lifetime. There are almost unlimited possibilities for local pilgrims – all you need is a local saint. But the main ones, the big three, are: Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela.”
There are two main reasons for going on pilgrimage:
“The first and obvious one is that you go because it’s a religious thing. The other reason you go is it’s a holiday. And you go in order to meet new people, see new things – all the reasons we go on holiday now.
“But even better than that, when you’re on pilgrimage you are under plenary indulgence. Which means that you’re ‘getting out of jail free’ for any sins committed while you’re on pilgrimage. That means you can get up to antics.”
Those ‘antics’ are hinted at in some of the surviving souvenirs from the pilgrim trails. Like this 4.3cm tall lead-tin badge found in the Netherlands:
Yes, that is a vulva figure with rosary in one hand, a pilgrim's staff in the other, and a penis on each shoulder!
“There are very inoffensive badges,” Dr Janega clarifies, “the most common one is the scallop shell. But you also get your vulvas and your penises and your people having sex under a phallus tree, and those are much more fun.”
It’s been suggested these bawdy designs are linked to going on pilgrimage to pray for fertility. They could even be related to the use of phalluses in the Roman period to ward off bad luck. But those reasons could also be “a really great cover” for why you’re actually wearing it, Dr Janega suggests.
“We don’t really know what they’re for, but they seem to be common enough that no one cares enough about them to mention them. It’s not like, ‘oh, we’re so shocked’. And they survive to us in great numbers, so we know they were very, very popular.
“I think that they are highlighting the fact that for people on pilgrimage, this is an opportunity to have a bunch of sex – extramarital or premarital, depending on who’s there – because it doesn’t count, because you’re under plenary indulgence. It’s like a ‘girls on tour’, or ‘lads on tour’, sort of thing.”
Also, it’s funny.
“Medieval people have an intensely sexual sense of humour. They’ve got much less of a sense of privacy than we do. And they are a lot more open about things like using the toilet or sex, because, you know, you live in one room with everyone.
“But you can’t make the joke unless there’s something going on behind it, right? It doesn’t make any sense to be making a bunch of pilgrimage sex jokes if nobody is having sex. It requires the thing to be happening, in my opinion.”
These designs were at their peak in the late 14th and early 15th centuries and are most commonly linked to the European Low Countries. And while the scallop shell pilgrim badges are frequently made from more precious metals – indicating they would be worn long after the pilgrimage itself – the genitalia designs tend to be crafted from cheaper materials. This suggests they’d be worn on the trail, but not necessarily once you got home again. Dr Janega likens it to women on a hen do carrying around giant inflatable penises or drinking from penis-shaped straws. It’s fun in the moment, but isn’t generally continued once the party is over.
To modern eyes, the badges – such as the above find from Belgium featuring three penis porters carrying a crowned vulva figure – might even seem feminist. But surely that wasn’t the interpretation in medieval times?
“I don’t want to go so far as saying medieval people can be feminist, but I will say that the way they think about women and sex is that women are very, very interested in sex, and they very much want to have sex, and they very much want to have sex with a lot of men. That's just the common conception of how women behave. So, [these badges are] a great opportunity to lean into that,” Dr Janega says.
“Now we think of that as feminist, but that’s because we have a different way of thinking about sex.
In the medieval period, life for women was more restricted than it is for us today, but less restrictive than it would become in the early modern period (16th-18th centuries). They were 'under the control' of men – first their father or brother, and then their husband. But they also (at all levels of society) worked and had careers. They had some degree of freedom of choice.
This made pilgrimage an interesting prospect for medieval women.
“It’s almost always possible to say that you wish to go on one,” says Dr Janega, “and if you can afford it, your husband can’t really stop you, because it’s a religious desire.”
And, maybe, a desire for antics, too.
Want your own bawdy medieval pilgrimage badge?
I’ve found a variety of recreations on Etsy in various metal finishes, including the three designs featured in this newsletter:
having done graduate wk in theology and, at the time, dug into contemporary research in medieval studies, i have a knee jerk reaction against these sorts of takes where we read our sexual norms onto a society that was by and large remarkably prudish, as in medieval studies this is so often tastelessly and thoughtlessly done. but in this case i struggle to find another explanation.
Great piece! I’ve seen these badges in lots of places — there’s a particularly big collection in Ypres’ Yper museum — but your ideas here definitely deepen my understanding of them. Thanks!