Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/151

 Notes on a Collection of Pilgrims' Signs. 131 And hundred of ampulles On his hat seten ; Signes of Synay, And shelles of Galice, And many a crouche on his cloke, And keyes of Rome, And the vernycle bi-fore, For men shulde knowe And se bi hise signes Whom he sought hadde. This folk frayncd hym first. Fro whennes he come. " Fram Synay," he seide, " And iram oure Lordes sepulcre ; In Bethlem and in Babiloyue, I have ben in bothe. In Armonye and Alisaundre. In manye othere places. Ye may se by my signes That sitten on myn liatte, That I have walked ful wide, In weet and in drye, And sought good scintes For my soules helthe." Not less conclusive, also, is the testimony of Erasmus in his Colloquy Pcre- grinatio Eeliffionis erga, when Meneclemus asks Ogygius, " What kind of attire is this that thou wearest ? Thou art bedizened with semicircular shells, art full of images of tin and lead, and adorned with straw chains, and thy arm is girt with a bracelet of beads." The reply is, "I visited St. James of Com- postella, and as I came back I visited the Virgin beyond the sea, who is very famous among the English." This was at Walsingham, the magnificent shrine of the Blessed Virgin," where, according to Richard Southwell, one of Cromwell's visitors, there was found " a secret prevye place within the howse, where no channon nor onnye other of the howse dyd ever enter, as they saye, in whiche there were instrewmentes, pottes, belowes, flyes of such strange colors as the lick none of us had scene, with poysies and other thinges to sorte, and denyd gould and sylver, nothing ther wantinge that should belonge to the arte of multyply- For an account of Walsingham Abbey and particulars as to the signs relating to it see a memoir by the Rev. James Lee Warner, Archaeological Journal, vol. xiii. p. 115. S2