![Medieval badges bearing obscene motifs.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/blog-titelbild-tragezeichen-300x225.jpg)
Medieval badges and their risqué designs
A look at the badges people wore in the Middle Ages reveals many designs that one would not normally associate with the period: fantastic creatures made out of genitalia call into question how prudish people really were in medieval times.
![Badge made from tin-lead alloy in the shape of a scallop shell, the person portrayed is the apostle James the Greater. Spain, 1450-1500.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/jakobsmuschel-tragezeichen-300x298.jpg)
![Procession of three phallic figures carrying a crowned vulva on a litter. Bruges, 1375-1424.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/prozession-tragezeichen-240x300.jpg)
![A vulva figure dressed as a pilgrim with rosary in one hand and pilgrim’s staff in the other.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/pilgernde-vulva-tragezeichen-240x300.jpg)
![Obscene gargoyle waterspout at the Hospital de los Reyes Católicos in Santiago de Compostela.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/santiago-gargola-gdfl050914-037-300x225.jpg)
![Phallus-picking nuns in the margins of the ‘Roman de la rose’ (medieval French poem) from the 13th century.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/phalluspfluckende-nonnen-rosenroman-300x271.jpg)
![Illustration in the Decretals of Gregory IX of 1392](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/decretalium-fliegender-penis-225x300.jpg)
![Winged phallic animal wearing a crown and a bell around its neck. Netherlands, 1375-1424.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/tragezeichen-fliegender-penis-225x300.jpg)
The flying phallus with wings, legs, a crown and bell around its neck exists as a badge and as an illustration in the Decretals of Gregory IX of 1392. Bibliothèque Nationale de France Bibliothèque Nationale de France / kunera.nl
![Upside-down world: the margins of the Alexander romance of 1338-1410 are replete with all kinds of strange drawings, for example hares hunting people as shown above.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/hasen-auf-der-menschenjagd-300x166.jpg)
coveted. cared for. martyred. Bodies in the Middle Ages
There were conflicting perspectives of the human body during the Middle Ages: it was glorified, suppressed, cared for and chastised. The exhibition features many loaned exhibits from within and outside Switzerland to explore how the human body was viewed during the Middle Ages from a cultural history perspective, thereby also raising some questions about how we perceive the human body today.