‘Lady Joan Danvers in 1453, gives the ring of her profession of widowhood to the image of the crucifix, near the north door of St. Paul’s.
‘Lady Margaret Davy, widow, in 1489, leaves her profession-ring to “Our Lady of Walsingham.”’
Gough prints the Act of Court from the Ely Registers, on the taking the vow by Isabella, Countess of Suffolk, in 1382. This took place at the priory of Campsey, in the presence of the Earl of Warwick, the Lords Willoughby, Scales, and others. The vow was as follows: ‘Jeo Isabella, jadys la femme William de Ufford, Count de Suffolk, vowe à Dieu, &c., en presence de tres reverentz piers en Dieu evesques de Ely et de Norwiz, qe jeo doi estre chaste d’ors en avant ma vie durante.’ And the Bishop of Ely, with authority of the Bishop of Norwich (in whose diocese Campsey was) received and admitted the same, ‘et mantellum sive clamidem ac annulum dicte voventis solempniter benedixit et imposuit super eam.’
Catherine, sixth daughter of Henry the Fourth, married to William Courtenay, Earl of Devon, on the death of her husband, took the vow of perpetual widowhood in 1511.
Dugdale, in his ‘History of Warwickshire’ and in his ‘Baronage,’ prints a licence from John, Bishop of Lichfield, to one N. N. to administer the vow of chastity to Margery, wife of Richard Middlemore, who died 15th of Henry the Seventh, which contains this passage: ‘In signum hujusmodi continentiæ et castitatis promisso perpetuo servando eandem Margeriam velandam seu peplandam habitumque viduitatis hujusmodi viduis, ut præfertur, ad castitatis professionem dari et uti consuetum cum unico annulo assignandum.’
Legacies and gifts of rings for religious purposes were frequent in former times; thus, amongst other rich gifts to the Cathedral of Canterbury, Archbishop Hubert, in 1205, presented four gold rings adorned with precious stones. Henry the Third, while on a visit to St. Alban’s Abbey, made some costly presents, including bracelets and rings, and five years afterwards gave similar gifts at another visit to the same abbey.
The same monarch, among other gifts to Salisbury Cathedral, ‘offered one gold ring with a precious stone called a ruby.’ After hearing mass he told the dean that he would have the stone and the gold applied to adorn a sumptuous gold ‘text’ (a Bible for the use of the altar) enriched with precious stones given by Hubert de Burgh.
Dugdale mentions in a list of jewels formerly in the treasury of York Cathedral ‘a small mitre, set with stones, for the bishop of the boys, or, as he was anciently called, the barne bishop; also a pastoral staff and ring for the same.’
The Bishop of Ardfert, in Ireland, gave to St. Alban’s ‘three noble rings; one set with an oriental sapphire, the second with a sapphire that possessed some medicinal quality, and was formed like a shield, and the other with a sapphire of less size.’