In the Londesborough Collection is a ‘religious’ ring, apparently a work of the fourteenth century. It has a heart in the centre, from which springs a double flower. On the upper edge of the ring are five protuberances in each side: they were used to mark a certain number of prayers said by the wearer, who turned his ring as he said them, and so completed the series in the darkness of the night.
Decade rings.
It has been stated by French antiquaries that metal rings formed with ten bosses, and one of as early date as the reign of St. Louis, have been found in France. It was at that period that the use of the chapelet in honour of the Blessed Virgin is supposed to have been devised by Peter the Hermit.
A decade silver ring found at Exton, in Rutlandshire, in the possession of Mrs. Baker, of Stamford, has also a central projection engraved with a cross.
In Mr. Hoare’s collection is a silver decade-ring found in 1848 in Surrey. The hoop has ten projections resembling the cogs of a wheel, and on the circular facet is the monogram I.H.S. surmounted by a cross, with a heart pierced by three nails.
In the Londesborough Collection is a ring of Delhi workmanship which has been referred to as a decade. The face is convex, circular, and of turquoise, engraved and inlaid with Oriental characters in gold, surrounded by ten cup-shaped bosses of rubies. The sides of the bosses are enamelled green, and the backs red and white like leaflets. The back of the face is richly enamelled with flowers having red blossoms and green leaves, among which, upon the shank, are intermingled some pale-blue blossoms, and within the centre, where the shank is attached to the back of the face, are small golden stars upon an enamelled ground, and on each side leaves of green enamel. The inscription reads ‘Jan (John) Kaptani.’
Ring of Delhi work.
Mr. Edmund Waterton, at a meeting of the Archæological Institute (December, 1862), gave the following notice of some rings of a peculiar class, of which he sent several specimens for inspection: ‘On a former occasion I exhibited, at one of the meetings, some of the so-called—and wrongly—rosary-rings, one of which had seven, the other eleven, and the third, thirteen knobs or bosses. I stated my opinion that we ought to consider these examples as belonging to a form of ring prevalent about the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and described in wills and inventories as rings with “knoppes or bulionys.” I had never met with a proper rosary, or, more properly, decade, ring of a date anterior to the sixteenth century. But a remarkable specimen has lately been added to my collection which I send for exhibition. It is of ivory; there are ten knobs or bosses for the Aves, and an eleventh of larger size and different form, for the Pater. There are holes around the hoop, probably merely for ornament. I am inclined to ascribe it to the fourteenth century, and think it not unlikely it is of Irish origin. I am induced to form this opinion from the peculiar fashion of the eleventh boss, which presents a type found in rings discovered only in Ireland. This ring was found many years ago in an old tomb in Merston churchyard, in Holderness. I also send another decade-ring, of silver, and of a later date and type. This ring was formerly in the possession of the Reverend Mother Anne More, Lady Abbess of the English Augustinian Nuns at Bruges, and sister of Father More, of the Society of Jesus, the last male descendant of Sir Thomas More. He gave the More relics to Stonyhurst College.’