The ampul was not confined to St. Thomas of Canterbury. When his ampuls became so very popular, the guardians of the other famous shrines adopted it, and manufactured "waters," "aquæ reliquiarum," of their own. The relic of the saint, which they were so fortunate as to possess, was washed with or dipped in holy water, which was thereupon supposed to possess--diluted--the virtues of the relic itself. Thus there was a "Durham water," being the water in which the incorruptible body of St. Cuthbert had been washed at its last exposure; and Reginald of Durham, in his book on the admirable virtues of the blessed Cuthbert,[201] tells us how it used to be carried away in ampuls, and mentions a special example in which a little of this pleasant medicine poured into the mouth of a sick man, cured him on the spot. The same old writer tells us how the water held in a bowl that once belonged to Editha, queen and saint, in which a little bit of rag, which had once formed part of St. Cuthbert's garments, was soaked, acquired from these two relics so much virtue that it brought back health and strength to a dying clerk who drank it. In Gardner's "History of Dunwich" (pl. iii.) we find drawings of ampullæ like those of St. Thomas, one of which has upon its front a W surmounted by a crown, which it is conjectured may be the pilgrim sign of Our Lady of Walsingham, and contained, perhaps, water from the holy wells at Walsingham, hereinafter described. Another has an R surmounted by one of the symbols of the Blessed Virgin, a lily in a pot; the author hazards a conjecture that it may be the sign of St. Richard of Chichester. The pilgrim who brought away one of these flasks of medicine, or one of these blessed relics, we may suppose, did not always hang it up in church as an _ex voto_, but sometimes preserved it carefully in his house for use in time of sickness, and would often be applied to by a sick neighbour for the gift of a portion of the precious fluid out of his ampul, or for a touch of the trinket which had touched the saint. In the "Collectanea Antiqua," is a facsimile of a piece of paper bearing a rude woodcut of the adoration of the Magi, and an inscription setting forth that "Ces billets ont touché aux troi testes de saints Rois a Cologne: ils sont pour les voyageurs contre les malheurs des chemins, maux de teste, mal caduque, fièures, sorcellerie, toute sorte de malefice, et morte soubite." It was found upon the person of one William Jackson, who having been sentenced for murder in June, 1748-9, was found dead in prison a few hours before the time of his execution. It was the charmed billet, doubtless, which preserved him from the more ignominious death. We find a description of a pilgrim in full costume, and decorated with signs, in "Piers Ploughman's Vision." He was apparelled--