The Devil, The Saint, And The Shoe

I was told in passing a funny little tale earlier in the week during a scholarly lecture. After some confusion I realised that I had in fact read about it before, in a historical novel of all places! So I undertook a little research in order to fill the gaps that my faulty memory had created.

This then is the tale of John Schorn. (And proof that not all historical fiction books are necessarily full of lies).

Lead alloy, fifteenth-century pilgrim badge
depicting John Schorn, The British Museum.

Here is a fifteenth-century metal pilgrim badge, which can be found at the British Museum in London. It depicts a man pushing the devil into a boot.

John Schorn was a late thirteenth-century rector in Buckinghamshire who was popularly venerated as a saint. After his death in 1314 his burial place in North Marston became a centre of pilgrimage. His most famous miracle was the conjuring of the devil into a boot, as shown on this badge. He was never officially canonised by the Church, but his legend did not remain a local phenomenon for long.

St Gregory’s Church in the town of Sudbury is one of the many parish churches in Suffolk to possess a surviving medieval rood screen. (These were wooden screens that separated the nave from the chancel, and were often painted with images of saints). The screen at St Gregory’s indeed has a panel painting depicting John Schorn holding a boot into which a hairy devil descends.

The popularity of John Schorn can be attested by the purchase and rehousing of his relics to St George's Chapel at Windsor in 1481. John Schorn can be associated to a beautifully illuminated early fifteenth-century Book of Hours by a hymn found within. In this John Schorn is invoked to aid the sick. It has been thought by some that a pilgrim who visited the shrine at St George's Chapel owned this Book of Hours.

The Schorn Book of Hours, c. 1430-50