I have a small amulet to bring me luck and protect me from evil. It holds some little charms I have collected – pilgrim tokens, an elf-arrow, a petal from the first rose my consort won for me – as well as prayers and my favourite saints names. The priests, neither of the Old Faith nor the new Kirk, do not like these, so it stays hidden in a coffer, rather than worn around my neck as of old.
Amulets, talismans and charms — yes they are different things — have a very long history, it seems back as far as we can recognise humankind. In 16th-century Europe religious reforms and fervour had not succeeded in stamping out such practices.
One form which remained popular (versions can be found to this day) is that of the breverl, breve, or brevu relating to the short text and reminders it contained (surviving in this useage in the legal term brief). They typically consist of a couple of pages of folded written or printed text accompanied by woodcuts of saints or the Holy Family and a selection of tiny charms such as crosses, pilgrim tokens, pebbles or gems and the like. These were carefully folded together and housed in small bags of leather, silk or metal; later pasteboard slipcovers became common and Cellini drew designs for jewelled versions.
The text contained prayers, written charms or magic words aimed at protecting the wearer, initially from plague, but just as much from temptation and sin, and also from more mundane concerns like cramp or lightning strikes. Sometimes a small roll of paper or parchment would contain a list of saints or intercessionary prayers.
St Thomas Aquinas approved of some types of amulets and the witch-hunting tome Malleus Maleficarum recommended that the inquisitor wear one to protect against the spells of witches (Skemer, pg 66). Perhaps not surprisingly, Martin Luther railed against the practice in the late 1530s, saying it was “a frightful misuse and a piece of witchery to write the words In principio erat verbum on a slip of paper..as a charm against thunder and storm” (Skemer, pg 67).
Although the Church in all its forms came to frown upon these, they remained a staple of religious markets, predominantly popular in Garmany, Italy and Austria. I was pleased to find a Scottish reference to their use, with John Ruthven (he of the Gowrie Conspiracy) wearing one, though it clearly didn’t aid him in his attack on James VI (Skemer, pg 134, footnote).
There is mention of ensuring that the amulets were locked like letters to retain their ju-ju (Skemer, pg 145). Once opened, their divine powers were said to vanish; one rare extant version was opened to find the magic text page was blank!
Oddly enough, the text in these contain mnemonics for various prayers/devotions — it’s hard to see how useful they could be if the amulets weren’t actually consulted….
My textual amulet (to use the technical academic term) contains inspirational quotes I like, the Baronial Oath, a list of virtues as well as some Biblical verses and prayers. For the Scots touch there are conversion units for money, weights and measures, and an extract from a 1541 church dedication record for Andrew Ker of Fernihirst (12 pounds donated to St Catherine’s altar!).
The woodcut of the saints is a 1488 one by Domenec showing at top the 15 mysteries of the rosary and Christ’s life; in the bottom half is (left) St Dominic, St Thomas Aquinas, and St Catherine of Alexandria, surrounding the Madonna and Child. The extant versions were backed with printed art papers which looked a little modern to my eye so I backed mine with some parchmenty paper.
The list of saints starts with ones that katherine venerates: St Jerome, St Barbara, St Katherine, St Dominic and St Thomas, along with others of interest. It also includes a reminder of the Hours.
The charms include a collection of event tokens: a St Thomas clover leaf from the Coronation I co-stewarded; a St Katherine wheel from an Ildhafn event; an Alan Garner-inspired flower-owl from one of the first quests I ever ran; and a lion from a Canterbury Faire feast, for St Jerome and my lord-husband Bartholomew. Also a milagros cross, a broken Kingdom award (Prix Jongleur), a flint arrowhead, some amber chips and a set of my Kingdom triple gems, a gold wooden tower crafted by my son Pippin when he was a wee lad. All these are backed by dried rose petals from the May Crown Rose Tourney where Sir Radbot fought for me. As with the extant examples, they have been glued to a card with four saints’ names and scrap fabric in red and green across the corners.
The extant versions I have been able to track down thus far are from the 1650s-1720s. Period references mention silk or leather bags, rather than the pasteboard slip-cover of the later versions. I intend to make a small taffetta bag in “katherine green” to hold my amulet, but in the meantime I have tucked it together in a letter-locked style to hold things in place.
Let’s hope it brings me luck!
Skemer, Don C: Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages; Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006
Amulets – “Breverl.”, Entry 2, pg 3 https://ilab.org/sites/default/files/catalogs/files/1305_musinsky_20spring_20list_202013.pdf
Breverl 1690-1710http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display?id=4607
http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/hommedia.ashx?id=9747&size=Large
Breverl: folding paper amulet, 1650-1726:https://www.smu.edu/Bridwell/SpecialCollectionsandArchives/Exhibitions/ShapeofContent/ReadableObjects/Amulet
Video of folding:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8AWpmrrdo