St James the Great

St James the Great is shown with some of his traditional attributes: the hat and satchel, both decorated with scallop shells and the remains of his staff. These, with the line of whelk shells down the front of his robe, indicate his status as a pilgrim. Pilgrimage to Santiago da Compostela, Spain, where his relics were venerated, was extremely popular in the later Middle Ages, and the saint was increasingly represented as a pilgrim. He was one of Christ's apostles, and the first to be martyred.

This figure was either an individual image for private devotion, or formed part of a larger altarpiece. Alabaster producers in the English midlands in the 15th century produced hundreds of figures of saints for similar purposes.