Pilgrim Staff Badge

A customer asked for a pilgrim sign of crossed staffs, which as he pointed out, one sees in art, and we thought it was a great idea. So Mac started collecting a Pinterest page of images of pilgrims with hats and signs. (You can see it at https://www.pinterest.com/macs_shop/pilgrims/ if you would like to review the images for yourself.) We soon became convinced, though that there was probably no such thing as a badge of crossed staffs. First, there are no extant examples of such a badge, nor any fragments that we know of. Second, there ARE extant examples of single pilgrim staff badges. Further, there are numerous examples of staffs turned from bone, both images and artifacts. These single staffs also turn up in art, once you start looking out for them. Single staffs can very easily be crossed, and stitched down, forming the iconic shape. Likewise, one can sew a scallop shell down over a pair of crossed staffs, which is another thing you see. I imagine by now you can guess what we did – Mac made a mold that casts a single staff, which you can sew down singly, or in pairs, as you prefer.

Single staffs (in abundance) on the Pilgrim Hat of Stephan Praun, 1571. Wool felt, silk braid, shell, bone and jet. At the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Inv. Nr. T552. see http://objektkatalog.gnm.de/objekt/T552 for its full splendor!