This hat badge portrays—and perhaps even celebrates—the relationship between the biblical King Herod and his wife, Herodias, as she stabs a knife into the decapitated head of John the Baptist. In the Gospels, the preacher had advised against the marriage of Herod and Herodias, as Herodias had been the wife of Herod’s brother. After seeing Herodias’s daughter Salome dance before him, Herod agreed to fulfill any request that she made of him. Salome asked for the head of John the Baptist to be presented to her mother. This hat badge might suggest the theme of surrendering one’s soul in the name of love—a common motif in the art and poetry of the period, such as the parodic writings of Andreas Capellanus, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun.
JS