01/06/2026
A couple of new badges were loaded onto the website last week and, by chance, both have something of a moon theme: one is a pilgrim badge from the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden, with the Virgin & Child set within the horns of a crescent moon, while the other is just a moon.
When I say ‘just a moon’, it is a bit more than that. As you can see, the moon is depicted in two phases, with the crescent of a new moon combined with the full moon, complete with smiley face! I’m interpreting this one as a luck bringer, as the moon had a common association with good fortune in the medieval world. This usually took the form of luck with money, as a common belief held that showing ones money to a new moon would encourage those coins to increase as the moon grew. This belief was mentioned a few times in the wonderful 15th century collection of peasant beliefs known as the Distaff Gospels. For instance “If someone looks at the crescent moon while his purse is full, he should greet it and bow devoutly and, for certain, his money will multiply during that moon.” Rather bizarrely, the same book also says that “women who urinate with their face towards the moon could be impregnated by it”: No wonder he has a smile on his face!
The Marian badge is also rather interesting: It’s of a type commonly found as artefacts in London but rarely elsewhere. That clearly points to a London shrine and, for a number of reasons, the finger tends to point at Willesden. Willesden was just seven miles or so to the north of medieval London, so pilgrimage there for Londoners was perfectly achievable as little more than a day excursion. It had existed as a shrine and holy well since at least the 13th century, but went on to achieve an extraordinary level of popularity at the beginning of the 16th century. Its image of the Virgin Mary, reported as being carved from a dark or black wood, was important enough to be preached against by reformers alongside the more famous images our Lady of Ipswich & Our Lady of Walsingham. When Thomas Cromwell's agents arrived to remove Willesden's image in 1538, they reported the church to be still full of pilgrims, with one woman having brought an offering of flowers. The image was removed to London nonetheless and there burnt on the famous pyre of images at Chelsea.
As for the crescent moon element: This is a very common symbol of Mary in medieval art, contrasting clearly with Christ’s sun symbol. The meanings are multi layered, but the moon was generally seen as feminine and linked to motherhood and fertility in many religions. It also appears in Saint John's vision in the Book of Revelation, where the 'woman of the apocalypse' (who is generally considered to be Mary) appears in the heavens as ‘a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.’
Both badges are copied from originals in my own collection (see pic in comments) and are available now from the web shop www.lionheartreplicas.co.uk as items S46 & P57 - and at a mere £6 each plus postage!
One last thing: If this has piqued your interest in medieval attitudes to the moon, I'd recommend Dr Ayoush Lazikani's recent book - 'The Medieval Moon' (Yale University Press), or there's a good podcast episode related to the book on 'Gone Medieval' by History Hit.
