Medieval Pilgrimage Badge: Radiant Sun, Circa 1400

This is a rare pilgrimage badge, made of lead,decorated with the sun at its center and radiating rays all around. It wasdiscovered many years ago near Little Walsingham, Norfolk. Although the symbolof the Sun in Splendor was used in heraldic expressions of this period, itappears to be a pilgrimage object, particularly because of its location. In theheraldic version, it is a symbol of the House of York after Edward's (laterEdward IV's) crucial victory at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross. Before the battle,three suns appeared in the sky, the result of a phenomenon called a parhelion.

Size: 4.5 cm in diameter. T
he badge has not undergone any repairs; the sun isoff-center (not molded) due to its manufacture.
A French example of a Sun inSplendor is in The Cloisters (MET), USA