60x43 mm
lead-tin alloy, pin, 1400-1450
Exactly above the head of the Virgin the round frame in which a mirror was set.
[s’-Hertogenbosch means the Duke’s woodland and was and is known as Den Bosch or woodland]
Heilig en Profaan 1, 0463
Description:
In Aachen in the first half of the 15th century a new type of pilgrims’ badge was devised – the mirror badge. Because of the increasingly greater numbers of people who came to the display of relics, while it was possible to see the relics and venerate them at a distance, it was no longer possible to actually come close to them. It was thought that the sacred could be received with the help of mirrors. Commercial interests reacted immediately and tiny mirrors held in a frame by small clamps were sold. Pieces of colored paper, small prints or pieces of leather were used as background in these frames. The ‘mirror badge’ spread to s’-Hertogenbosch. There, since the late 14th century at the St. John’s Cathedral there had been a practice of Marian devotion based on a statue of the Virgin that was responsible for miracles. In a book of miracles 500 wonders are recorded that the Blessed Virgin of s’- Hertogenbosch had wrought.
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