In book ten, chapter five, of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), Victor Hugo depicts a superstitious King Louis XI of France sequestered with his advisors, resolving to hang the heroine Esmeralda as a witch despite her having claimed sanctuary in the cathedral of Notre-Dame. Asking advance forgiveness from the Virgin Mary, the king removes his hat and prays to one of several pilgrims' badges pinned to the hood, a medal devoted to the Virgin of Paris. Hugo's fictional account of the king's hat corresponds to fifteenth-c. accounts of apparel documented by historians during Louis's lifetime. The portrait (fig. 1) shows Louis's unkingly hat with the glimmer of a partly visible badge pinned on it. This badge, others like it, and the ways such a sign was used by pilgrims is the subject of this investigation, which will add to the already extensive literature on Louis XI, as well as expand the examination of pilgrims' badges and their uses in the late Middle Ages. Some of the ways in which the king used pilgrims' insignia were typical of fifteenth-c. pilgrims; others were unique to him alone and allow a glance at Louis's spiritual tenor. In any case, the prominence of the king makes Louis's use of these badges well documented and ideal for analysis.

King Louis XI (1423–83) ruled France from 1461 to 1483, and his reign is often described as a period of absolutism. Louis XI (1423–83) was raised in isolation from his father (Charles VII) and remained his enemy until 1461, the year of Louis's ascension to the throne.