Our Lady of Baloney Brooch

It is possible that this is political commentary on Queen Isabella, She-wolf of France: wife, political enemy, and perhaps complicit in the murder of, Edward II of England. (See the paper cited in the “Product details” for the argument advanced by James Robinson,.) It is absolutely certain that it is an obscene parody of the pilgrim signs of Our Lady of Boulogne-sur-Mer. These usually show a statue of the Virgin Mary in a boat, which was said to have sailed, guided either by the statue or by angels, into Boulogne harbor in 633 C.E. In the religious items, the Virgin has the Christ Child in one hand and the tiller of the boat in the other.

The British Museum, which holds the original, dates this in the 14th century, and suggests it was made in England, both of which make sense if it is a comment on Isabella. If so, it is presumably more closely dated between 1325 and 1330, when Isabella was actually causing trouble.