Head of St. Thomas Becket Brooch

This spectacular pilgrim sign, with its extremely deep relief in the face, is a copy of a common type of badge from the shrine of England’s favorite saint, martyred in 1170. His shrine was the greatest of England’s pilgrimage sites until the end of the 15th century. The similarities among the large number of these signs, dating from the late 13th century well into the 15th probably reflects not so much what Thomas himself looked like as the appearance of an important statue or reliquary within the shrine.