St James of Santiago de Compostela

Part of a pilgrim badge from the shrine of St James in Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. This is a scallop shell carved from jet and mounted in silver. It would have been attached to a real scallop shell. The shrine’s souvenir makers attempted to show the authentic origins of their shells by attaching jet scallops as jet souvenirs were a speciality of Compostela. This would have been an expensive souvenir, more costly than the usual lead-alloy badges from the shrine.

Santiago de Compostela was the third most important pilgrimage destination after Jerusalem and Rome. It was believed that the body of the apostle St James, who was martyred in AD 42, had been miraculously transported from Jerusalem to Galicia in Spain. By the 11th century his shrine at Compostela was attracting pilgrims from all over Europe. Many Londoners undertook the long and dangerous journey here, visiting a string of European shrines on the way. The symbol of St James was the scallop shell, though no one is quite sure why. Eventually St James came to be known as the patron saint of pilgrimage and the sign of the scallop became the symbol of pilgrimage itself, rather than just the badge of the Compostela shrine.