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This article deals with the origins of a group of pilgrim badges showing Charlemagne as a monarch seated on a throne with his sword lying horizontally across his knees (Figs 2.1- 2). This is a very particular depiction, associated not with the city of Aachen, the centre of Charlemagne devotion, but with Zürich, Switzerland.That city developed a unique depiction of Charlemagne, an iconography used consistently from the middle of the thirteenth century until well into the seventeenth century to represent the Grossmünster and the city.The pilgrim badges, of which ten are known today, are dated to the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on somewhat uncertain archaeological and stylistic grounds.The notable manner of depicting Charlemagne, in a range of media, is the strongest indication that points to the badges having been issued in Zürich rather than Aachen.
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