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Historical Medals/ Medallions

In the Roman Catholic Faith, a devotional medal is a medal issued for religious devotion. They are also sometimes used by adherents of the Orthodox and Anglican Churches. more...

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A medal may be defined to be a piece of metal, usually in the form of a coin, not used as money, but struck or cast for a commemorative purpose, and adorned with some appropriate effigy, device, or inscription. In the present article we are concerned only with religious medals. These are more varied even than secular medals, for they are produced not only to commemorate persons (e.g. Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints), places (e.g. famous shrines) and past historical events (e.g. dogmatic definitions, miracles, dedications etc.) as well as personal graces like First Communion, Ordination, etc., but they are also often concerned with the order of ideas (e.g. they may recall the mysteries of the Roman Catholic faith, such as the Blessed Sacrament or the Divine Attributes), they are used to inculcate lessons of piety, are specially blessed to serve as badges of pious associations or to consecrate and protect the wearer, and finally are often enriched with indulgences.

History

In the early Church

It was at one time doubted whether anything in the nature of a purely devotional medal was known in the early ages of Christianity. Certain objects of this kind were described and figured by seventeenth-century writers on the Catacombs, and a few such were preserved in museums. All these were however regarded with much suspicion before the appearance of an epoch-making article by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in the Bullettino di Archeologia, Cristiana for 1869, since which time the question has been practically set at rest and the authenticity of some at least of these specimens has remained undisputed. A moment's consideration will establish the intrinsic probability of the existence of such objects. The use of amulets in pagan antiquity was widespread. The word amuletum itself occurs in Pliny, and many monuments show how talismans of this kind were worn around the neck by all classes. Many early Catholic Christians no doubt did make use of devotional medals.

The letter of Gregory the Great to St. Mellitus about the dedication of pagan temples, preserved to us by Bede (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, I, xxx), supplies perhaps the most famous example. Moreover we know that the same St. Gregory sent to Theodolind, Queen of the Lombards, two phylacteria, -the cases are still Preserved at Monza- containing a relic of the True Cross and a sentence from the Gospels, which her child Adulovald was to wear around his neck.

This, however, and the practice of wearing encolpia, little pectoral crosses, lent itself to abuses when magical formulae began to be joined to Christian symbols, as was regularly the practice of the Gnostics. Hence we find many of the fathers of the fourth and later centuries protesting more or less vigorously against these \"Gnostic\" phylacteries (cf. St. Jerome, \"In Matt.\", iv, 33; P. L., XXVI, 174). But that Christians of good name did wear such objects of piety around their necks is certain, and it is consequently probable that Christian devices, should have been cast in metal for a similar purpose. In Africa (see \"Bullettino di Arch. Crist.\", 1891), the moulds have been found in which little crosses were cast with rings to hang them by. It follows therefore that certain coin-like objects, for which there exists good evidence of their being actually discovered in the Catacombs must be regarded as genuine relics of the devotional practices of the early Church. Two or three of these are specially famous. One, which de Rossi attributes to the close of the fourth century, bears upon both faces the legend Successa Vivas, an \"acclamation\" which probably indicates that the medal was cast for a certain Successa to commemorate, perhaps, her dedication to God. On one side we see represented the martyrdom of a saint, presumably St. Lawrence, who is being roasted upon a gridiron in the presence of the Roman magistrate. The Christian character of the scene is shown by the chi-rho chrisma, the alpha and omega, and the martyr's crown. On the reverse is depicted a cancellated structure, no doubt the tomb of St. Lawrence, while a figure stands in a reverent attitude before it holding aloft a candle.