Devotional medal

A devotional medal is a medal issued for religious devotion most commonly associated with Roman Catholic faith, but sometimes used by adherents of the Orthodox and Anglican denominations.

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.

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. However, all of these items were 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 and talismans in pagan antiquity was widespread. The word amuletum itself occurs in Pliny, and many monuments show how objects of this kind were worn around the neck by all classes. Many early 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 Theodelinda, 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 son Adulovald was to wear around his neck.

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