Valon, and had been granted by the crown in return for military service. So large were the sales, and so comfortable the profits, that the thrifty townspeople constantly infringed upon the seignorial privilege, and flooded the market, in defiance of all authority, with contraband medals,—a pardonable offence, not without parallel in every age and land.
The Canterbury sygnys were in the shape of little flasks; at Compostella they were minute cockle-shells; at Amiens they bore the head of St. John the Baptist: "Ecce signum faciei beati Johannis Baptistae." So pleased were pilgrims with these devices, and so proud to wear the mementoes of their piety,—as the Moslem, returned from Mecca, wears his green turban,—that we find Erasmus mocking at their appearance "clothyd with cockle-schelles, and laden on every side with bunches of lead and tynne." There is not a shrine in Europe to-day unprovided with similar tokens. At Auray, medals of St. Anne; at Padua, medals of St. Anthony; at Avila, medals of St. Theresa; at Prague, medals of the Holy Infant; at Loretto, medals of the Santa Casa;
