Interview with Guillaume Herrou

A special thanks to Guillaume Herrou for making his thesis, “La Collection des enseignes de plomb du Musée des Antiquités de Rouen” (written in French) available to the Medieval Badges community. Guillaume’s thesis was conducted under the supervision of Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, Curator in Chief, and Jean-Christophe Ton-That, Chief of the Resource Center, from the Musée de Cluny – Musée National du Moyen Âge.

The topic of medieval badges in Rouen was offered as a subject for study at the École du Louvre for several years before Guillaume Herrou chose to undertake it during his Master’s of Museology and Art History. Not fully knowing what he was getting himself into, Guillaume was fortunate to begin his thesis before Covid, when he could still go into the museum and archives, and talk to the curators. Guillaume’s thesis comments on the formation and composition of the collection at the Musée des Antiquités, the history and reception of badges in museums, and offers a comparative museology of the display of badges to inform how the collection in Rouen can be displayed.

Sparked by and thanks to Guillaume’s research, they began looking for private collections of badges in Rouen and the region surrounding Rouen. Alongside Nicolas Hatot, the curator of the Musée des Antiquités de Rouen, they discovered the collection of Guy Dubois, who is cited in Guillaume’s thesis. This small collection of badges was collected in Rouen during the mid-twentieth century during the reconstruction of the city after the Second World War. 

Guillaume agreed to conduct a short interview earlier this year to share about his experience encountering and studying medieval badges.

Medieval Badges: What drew you to medieval badges (known in French as enseignes du plomb)? 

Guillaume Herrou: In my degree, I specialized in late antiquity and Byzantine Christian art. Because there was no seminar about that in my master’s, I decided to study the Middle Ages. One of the subjects proposed at that time was about badges and I wanted to study a corpus of objects. Badges seemed to be fun, so I thought let’s go!  

MB: Have you ever had a strange encounter when trying to tell someone what you research?

GH: Even students who study art history don't know [what badges are], so it's a bit difficult. Also in French, enseignes has two meanings. The principal meaning is the ‘sign’ [at commercial] shops. People think I study shops and signs at shops. So they don't understand why the Middle Ages? So I have to explain from the beginning: what is a badge, why [they’re] made in lead, and what [they’re] used for. 

MB: How would you summarize medieval badges to a non-specialist audience?

GH: I would begin with a presentation of badges and explain that big collections [of badges] are conserved in Paris, in the Musée de Cluny, and in the British Museum. I'd explain there are two kinds of badges, the older badges, which are religious badges, and later badges which could also be profane badges. I'd also explain that I think more important is that badges [testify] to medieval culture, and in particular, popular culture as we can see with sexual badges. It’s a bit strange for us to understand this kind of object, but badges can show the diversity of the Middle Ages and this culture, which we don't know very well.

MB: What did you think when you first heard about medieval badges?

GH: I felt like an archaeologist who discovers a new treasure. I had to understand what [badges] are and what [they’re] used for, and why also why [they’re] conserved in museums. And why we don't see this kind of objects more often in museums.

MB: Your Master’s research looked specifically at medieval badges housed at the Musée des Antiquités of Rouen, in the Normandy region of France. What is unique about the collection of badges housed in Rouen?

GH: First, I’m not sure I’d say it’s unique because there are many similarities with the Parisian collection. [The badges in Rouen] were found during the dredging of the Seine [in Rouen] during the same period, the Second Empire, and were found by collectors and not specialists nor archaeologists. But yes, we can say it was unique because this collection was found in Rouen and so, it reflects the history of the city because of the pilgrimages that were done in the Middle Ages by the inhabitants of the city. It also reflects more local pilgrimages like Mont-Saint-Michel or the Saint Catherine pilgrimage in Rouen. For profane badges, I think it can also reflect the history with the invasion of England during the Hundred Years War. 

MB: As I read your thesis, at the end you advocate for opportunities for students to work with these badges, like the opportunities offered at the University of Waterloo where students go over to Europe to see the badges. Now living in France, where badges are accessible, and people can actually go and see them with relative ease, I’d assume there's more of a tradition related to the badges than, say, in Canada? Would you say there's anything particular about the French tradition of scholarship on badges? 

GH: First, I wouldn't say that there is a tradition of scholarship in France because it was a subject for collectors at the end of the nineteenth century. A few people [were] interested in the 1960s, and today I think it's not really a ‘subject’ from my point of view. The exception to this would be the work of Denis Bruna who defended his PhD thesis on medieval badges in the 1990s and made the catalogue of badges at the Musée de Cluny.

MB: It’s not really a well-studied subject.

GH: New research is being done, but it's niche. In France, I think, because many conserved badges are made out of lead, it's not an ‘honored’ object that we put in the exhibitions first. Plus, you’d have to know there are badges to be able to find [them] in the museum. Maybe it's because there are lots of other objects [in France] and so badges are less interesting, or because the iconography is more complicated for the public to understand. But today, I think museums are trying to exhibit these objects and show their interest to the public, as you can see in my thesis. Many museums are rebuilding their museography and they try to include these kinds of objects inside, like in the Musée de Cluny, like in the Musée de Rouen, even if in the British Museum, which has a few pieces from Rouen. 

When asked where people interested in medieval badge collection in Rouen could go to learn more about them, Guillaume joked that they could read his thesis. While not much additional information about the medieval badges housed in Rouen presently exists, a glass display focused on badges will soon be on display, pending pandemic circumstances. Guillaume will give a presentation at a colloquium for a Société Savante in Normandy in September 2021. An accompanying article will be published, which Guillaume said he’d be happy to translate into English.

We look forward to hearing more from Guillaume and where his research goes! 

Guillaume Herrou received his Bachelor of Archeology and Art History with a specialization in Paleochristian, Coptic and Byzantine Art and Archeology from École du Louvre (Paris) in 2019. He is currently pursuing a Master in Museology and Art History at École du Louvre. During his first year of his Master’s (Museology), Guillaume wrote a thesis on the collection of medieval badges at the Musée des Antiquités in Rouen. Guillaume is currently in his second year of his Master’s (Art History), writing a thesis about the late-medieval iconography of baldness and shaving under the supervision of Denis Bruna, Chief Curator of Fashion and Textiles, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Written and edited by Hannah Gardiner.