The prayers used at the ceremony of blessing the rings on Good Friday are published in Waldron’s Literary Museum; and also in Pegge’s Curiatia Miscellanea, Appendix, No. iv. p. 164.
Cardinal Wiseman is in possession of a MS. containing the ceremony of blessing cramp rings. It belonged to the English Queen Mary. At the commencement of the MS. are emblazoned the arms of Philip and Mary, around which are the badges of York and Lancaster and the whole is inclosed within a frame of fruit and flowers. The first ceremony is headed: “Certain Prayers to be used by the Queen’s Leigues in the Consecration of the Crampe Rynges.” Accompanying it is an illumination representing the queen kneeling, with a dish—containing the rings to be blessed—on each side of her; and another exhibits her touching for the evil a boy on his knees before her, introduced by the clerk of the closet; his right shoulder is bared and the queen appears to be rubbing it with her hand. The author of the present work caused an application to be made for leave to take a copy of this illumination, so that his readers might have the benefit of it: the secretary of the Cardinal refused.
In a medical treatise, written in the fourteenth century,[218] there is what is called the medicine against the cramp; and modernizing the language, it runs thus: “For the Cramp. Take and cause to be gathered on Good Friday, at 5 Parish Churches, 5 of the first pennies that is offered at the cross, of each Church the first penny; then take them all and go before the cross and say 5 paternosters to the worship of the 5 wounds and bear them on the 5 days, and say each day all much in the same way; and then cause to be made a ring thereof without alloy of other metal and write within it Jasper, Batasar, Altrapa” (these are blundered forms of the three kings of Cologne) “and write without Jh’es Nazarenus; and then take it from the goldsmith upon a Friday and say 5 paternosters as thou did before and use it always afterward.”
Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, when at the court of the Emperor Charles the Fifth as ambassador from Henry the Eighth, in a letter dated 21st June, 1518, writes to Cardinal Wolsey: “If your Grace remember me with some crampe rynges, ye shall do a thing much looked for and I trust to bestow thaym well, with Godd’s grace.”[219]
A letter from Dr. Magnus to Cardinal Wolsey, written in 1526,[220] contains the following: “Pleas it your Grace to wete that M. Wiat of his goodness sent unto me for a present certaine cramp ringges, which I distributed and gave to sondery myne acquaintaunce at Edinburghe, amonges other to Mr. Adame Otterbourne, who, with oone of thayme, releved a mann lying in the falling sekeness, in the sight of myche people; sethenne whiche tyme many requestes have been made unto me for cramp Ringges at my departing there and also sethenne my comyng from thennes. May it pleas your Grace, therefore, to show your gracious pleasure to the said M. Wyat that some Ringges may be kept and sent into Scottelande; which, after my poore oppynyoun, shulde be a good dede, remembering the power and operacion of thaym is knowne and proved in Edinburgh and that they be greatly required for the same cause by grete personnages and others.”
The mode of hallowing rings to cure the cramp is found in what is entitled an “Auncient Ordre for the hallowing of Cramp Rings,” etc. It is amusing to read of the degrading course which king, queen, ladies and gentlemen had to take, each one creeping along a carpet to a cross. The account runs thus: “Firste, the King to come to the Chappell or clossett, with the lords and noblemen wayting upon him, without any sword borne before hime of that day, and ther to tarrie in his travers until the Bishope and the Deane have brought in the Crucifixe out of the vestrie and laid it upon the cushion before the highe alter. And then the usher to lay a carpet for the Kinge to creepe to the crosse upon. And that done, there shall be a forme set upon the carpett before the crucifix and a cushion laid upon it for the Kinge to kneel upon. And the Master of the Jewell house ther to be ready with the crampe rings in a bason of silver and the Kinge to kneel upon the cushion before the forme. And then the Clerke of the Closett be readie with the booke concerninge the halowinge of the crampe rings, and the aumer must kneele on the right hand of the Kinge, holdinge the sayd booke. When that is done, the Kinge shall rise and go to the alter, weare a Gent. Usher shall be redie with a cushion for the Kinge to kneele upon; and then the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take the bason with the rings and beare them after the King to offer. And thus done, the Queene shall come down out of her closett or traverss into the Chappell with ladyes and gentlewomen waiting upon her and creepe to crosse, and then go agayne to her clossett or traverse. And then the ladyes to creepe to the crosse likewise, and the Lords and Noblemen likewise.”
In 1536, when the convocation under Henry the Eighth abolished some of the old superstitious practices, this of creeping to the cross on Good Friday, etc., was ordered to be retained as a laudable and edifying custom.[221]
Even in the dark ages of superstition, the ancient British kings do not seem to have affected to cure the king’s evil or scrofula. This gift was left to be claimed by the Stuarts. The Plantagenets were content to cure the cramp.
In our own time we find three young men in England subscribing sixpence each to be moulded into a ring for a young woman afflicted with the cramp.