Flask-type pilgrim 'badge', Winchester. Source: St Cross Hospital ampulla

From St Cross Hospital ampulla:

This pilgrim’s ampulla is a close copy of one found on the grounds of the St Cross Hospital and Almshouse of Noble Poverty in Winchester, by the 2013 Winchester Archaeology and Local History group excavation of what are thought to be the 13thC foundations of the hospital. It is possible it is a later period deposit.

Pilgrims would fill their ampulla with holy water from a pilgrimage site, and then use the water as a magic potion to cure their ills in time of need.

An original in good condition:

Note the battered-looking neck.

After opening, that long flexible neck could be rolled or pinched closed. We'd call it resealable.

Pilgrims pinned them to their clothes or hung them from their loops. Then they 'damaged' them and threw them away:

He's right about what's wrong. Source: Bless The Fields

These 'votive offerings' are most often found on farmland and in rivers. For the orthodox-minded, Jennifer Lee already took apart the "toss my souvenir of pilgrimage into a river" theory in her Medieval pilgrims’ badges in rivers: the curious history of a non-theory.

So I'll concentrate on why they have been found scattered on farmland.

The video starts with three different ampullae patterns: a scallop, something undefined and a star-flower affair. It says they usually contained oil or water.

Just possibly, their decoration indicated their contents. In the absence of a study comparing decoration with traces of ampullae content, we can't sure. But there are hints in the best-known pilgrimage emblem: the scallop shell.

Like pilgrims, farmers and farm workers use - and discard - a variety of cans and containers:

These are just the big ones. Source: Vintage Oil Cans - Dreamstime

We're interested in the small ones:

Refillable ampullae. Source: Vintage Oil Cans - Dreamstime

These cans are for dispensing 'mineral oil'. As opposed to 'animal oil'.

We're interested in the two cans at the back on the right - the ones that most resemble the flattened shape of pilgrims' ampullae:

Loops went out when pockets came in. Source: Vintage Oil Cans - Dreamstime

Like pilgrims' ampullae, these oil dispensers won't stand up on their own. They were designed to be carried around by mobile workers. In the pockets of overalls and boiler suits.

The disappearance of loops catches the transition from clothing without pockets to clothing with pockets. From hand-crafted leather and fur to machine-woven fabrics.

The others were designed to sit on shelves and workbenches.

These oil cans weren't only designed to carry machine oil. They were designed to keep it handy.

Why?

Because agricultural shearing and cutting tools take a lot of sharpening and lubricating. Especially when you are paid per piece. Such as for shearing and flensing (hide removal).

The oil cans in the previous two images catch the transition from mobile workers walking around maintaining outdoor equipment (primarily that means shears and knives - at least on livestock farms) to workers operating in sheds, workshops and from vehicles.

Less mobile, indoor workers didn't take oil on pilgrimage. They need oil cans that will stay upright on a shelf:

Only the nozzles are new. Source: Old Oil Cans - Dreamstime

The shell pattern on some pilgrimage ampullae hints at the evolution of oil refining.

From History of the Shell Logo Design:

The symbol, a stylised seashell, first appeared in the late 1940s. Inspired by the shape and form of actual seashells, the design encapsulated the company's connection to nature and its focus on energy derived from fossil fuels.

1955 Shell logo. Source: Shell Oil Can - Dreamstime

"Actual seashells" hints at the oil industry's pre-petroleum days:

Original Shell logo design. Source: History of the Shell Logo Design

From History of the Shell Logo Design:

Shell, officially known as Royal Dutch Shell, was founded in 1907 due to a merger between two major companies, Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company.

The first appearance of the Shell name and logo can be traced back to the early 1900s.

And when you trace the evolution of oil back beyond the early 1900s, you encounter the Holy Roman Empire. A very manual - and therefore resource-efficient - place:

Shell hide scraper. Source: Raw Materials and Technology

Shell scrapers removed hair from hides.

They also removed sub-cutaneous fat from hairy and hairless animals. The hides were then tanned into leather. The fat was then turned to many uses, one of which was being rendered into fine grease and oil.

Rendering is a form of oil refining.

Hides of hairless, white-skinned animals were particularly suitable for dyeing and for turning into fine quality vellum and parchment.

A peculiar feature of England are the sudden appearance of shell-decorated grottoes in the 17th century.

From Shell Houses and Grottoes:

British grottoes were built as indoor rooms, often in the area below the stairs leading to the first-floor reception rooms, or piano nobile, in a neo-classical villa.

As the nineteenth century arrived... the shell-decorated grotto was replaced by large rockeries and simulated caves

Yes, England's shell grottoes span the same two-century (acknowledged) period that human skin was used for vellum.

The shell's association with carcass processing are sometimes much more obvious:

From Shell Houses and Grottoes:

A grotto boathouse... at Wanstead Park... had a shell-decorated room above the boathouse where [John, 2nd Early TyIney] stored his collection of coffins.

More:

Why did some ampullae not contain oil?

Perhaps because not all lubricating and cleaning fluids are oil:

Do we really know what Holy Water really was? Source: Old Oil Cans - Dreamstime

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