# Agnus Dei

**Known today as.** A wax medallion stamped with the Lamb of God, blessed by the pope (note LXX).

Kind: Sacramental

## What did Canale use it for?

Worn by the sick; placed in pouches in the corners of rooms against hexes; “much, too, has been gathered on their wondrous effects” (Treatise Two).

## What does modern science say?

The great papal consecration took place in the first year of each pontificate and every seventh year afterwards.

## What lore surrounds it?

Believers credited the blessed wax medallion with protection against storms, fire, floods, shipwreck, poison, epilepsy, and difficult childbirth. Pope Pius V is said to have thrown one into the flooding Tiber, after which the waters receded. Elizabeth I later banned their import into England as “popish trumperies.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia thinks it “probable that they had their beginning in some pagan usage of charms or amulets, from which the ruder populace were weaned by the enjoyment of this Christian substitute blessed by prayer.” The first Agnus Deis (c. 820) “were made of the remnants of the preceding year's paschal candle,” and Ennodius (c. 510) shows “that fragments of the paschal candles were used as a protection against tempests and blight.” As the blood of the paschal lamb protected each household, “so the purpose of these consecrated medallions is to protect those who wear or possess them from all malign influences,” the blessing naming “the perils from storm and pestilence, from fire and flood, and also of the dangers to which women are exposed in childbirth.” Under Elizabeth they were listed among the “popish trumperies” forbidden entry into England, and a grey kind, mixed “with the dust which is believed to be that of the bones of martyrs,” is called the Paste de' SS. Martiri.

## Sources

- Papal Artifacts, “Agnus Dei.”
- National Catholic Register, on the Agnus Dei.
- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Agnus Dei.” newadvent.org/cathen/01220a.htm

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*Agnus Dei.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/agnus-dei

Historical description, not medical advice.