St. Agnes, in the old legend, when tempted to marry the son of Sempronius, the prefect of Rome, by rich presents, rejects them with scorn, ‘being already betrothed to a lover who is greater and fairer than any earthly suitor.’
In Hone’s ‘Everyday Book’ (vol. i. p. 141) there is a curious story connected with St. Agnes, ‘who,’ says Butler, ‘has always been looked upon as a special patroness of purity, with the immaculate mother of God.’ It seems that a priest who officiated in a church dedicated to that saint was very desirous of being married. He prayed the Pope’s licence, who gave it him, together with an emerald ring, and commanded him to pay his addresses to the image of St. Agnes in his own church. The priest did so, and the image put forth her finger and he put the ring thereon; whereupon the image drew her finger again, and kept the ring fast, and the priest was contented to remain a bachelor, ‘and yet, as it is sayd, the rynge is on the fynger of the ymage.’
Mrs. Jameson remarks, on a painting representing in one compartment of the picture the Espousal of St. Francis of Assisi with the Lady Poverty, that she is attended by Hope and Charity as bridesmaids, being thus substituted for Faith. St. Francis places the ring upon her finger, while our Saviour, standing between them, at once gives away the bride and bestows the nuptial benediction.
St. Herman of Cologne, in the thirteenth century, is said to have had an ecstatic dream, in which the Virgin descended from heaven, and, putting a ring on his finger, declared him her espoused. Hence he received from the brotherhood with which he was connected the name of Joseph. He died in 1236.
In Hone’s ‘Everyday Book’ it is remarked that the meeting of St. Anne and St. Joachim at the Golden Gate was a popular theme. The nuns of St. Anne, at Rome, showed a rude silver ring as the wedding one of the two saints.
In the Braybrooke Collection is a thick, gold, nun’s ring, with a conical surface to the band of the hoop, and an inscription of the fourteenth century, in Longobardic characters, ‘× O (for avec) cest (for cet) anel seu (for je suis) espose de Jheusu Crist.’ In the Waterton Collection at the South Kensington Museum is also a nun’s ring of the same date, inscribed ‘God with Maria.’
In former times complaints were made in the ‘Constitutions’ of nuns wearing several rings. In the ‘Ancren Riwle, or Regulæ Inclusarum’ (Camden Society) nuns are forbidden to have brooch or ring, or studded girdle:—
Ring ne broche nabbe ye; ne gurdel i-membred.
‘Espousals to God’ were not confined to the religious portion of the community.
Eleanora, third daughter of John, King of England, on the death of her husband, the Earl of Pembroke, in 1231, in the first transports of her grief, made in public a solemn vow, in presence of Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, that she would never again become a wife, but remain a true spouse of Christ, and received the ring in confirmation, which vows she, however, subsequently broke, to the indignation of a strong party of the laity and clergy of England, by her marriage with Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. At the head of the clergy was one William de Avendon, a Dominican friar, who quoted a tractate on vows, by one ‘Master Peter,’ from which it appears that a sacred plight-ring was considered almost as impassable a barrier as the veil itself, against the marriage of the wearer.