I want to embroider a "lady's favour" for my boyfriend for his birthday, but I have no idea what to put on it. Any ideas for appropriate medieval symbolism would be appreciated.

by [deleted]

My boyfriend is a Lit/History major specializing in the medieval period, especially medieval Christianity, with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies. I've been playing around with embroidery lately and I think it would be nice to make him a lady's favour like knights used to carry around. However, I know nothing about this subject and wouldn't want to spend a lot of time making something poorly researched. What sort of meaningful symbols or pictures might appear on an embroidered handkerchief from this time period? He is a devout Catholic, but also has a deep appreciation for Middle Eastern history. If I should direct this to a different subreddit, please let me know. I am new to reddit.

[deleted]

A common devotional cult in the later middle ages (and still popular today) is to the five wounds of Christ. A typical medieval exemplar would look like this. A similar later woodcut can be found here. This sort of symbology would be a fairly common gift of the sort you mention.