Medieval Terracotta Pilgrim's Horn

CIRCA 15TH CENTURY A.D.

10 1/2 in. (298 grams, 26.5 cm).

Formed with a slightly curved profile and with suspension loops; buff-coloured.

Provenance

Acquired 1990s-early 2000s.
East Anglian private collection.

Footnotes

Apart from badges as souvenirs of visits to various saints’ shrines, pilgrims might also bear away with them various noise-making items such as horns, whistles, rattles and bells. The miniature horn-shaped lead whistles known from London and Salisbury bear various inscriptions including bla me [blow me] and ave maria. In the contemporary ‘morality’ play Mankind (c.1465-70) of East Anglian provenance, the character Nought says I kan pype in a Walsyngham wystyll, which suggests that such souvenir whistles were available from the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham too, and that already such ‘tourist’ trinkets were regarded as a proverbial type of worthlessness, ‘not worth a whistle’, indeed.

CONDITION

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LOT 1405