[44] Queen Bertha, consort of King Louis the Seventh, of France, was crowned by the Pope, who also placed a ring on her finger, saying: ‘Receive this ring, emblem of the Holy Trinity, by which you may resist heresy and bring the heathen to a knowledge of the faith by the virtue thus given. God, the source of all dignity and honour, give to thy servant, by this sign of the faith, grace to persevere in His sight, that she may evermore rest firm in the faith by the merits of Jesus Christ.’
[45] The ruby, according to De Laert (1647), appears to have been very generally used for rings, and unpolished; for, ‘unlike the diamond that hath no beauty unless shaped and polished, the ruby charms without any aid from art.’ True rubies, and of good colour uncut, but with their natural surface polished, set in rings, date from the earliest times. Gesner states that Catherine of Arragon used to wear a ring set with a stone luminous at night, which he conjectures was a ruby.
[46] A MS. account of the ‘Conveyance of Great Estates into the King’s presence at the time of their creation’ (British Museum, Additional MSS. No. 6,297) gives the preparation for a creation of the Prince. After the rich habits given on this occasion, we read: ‘Item, a sword, the scabbard covered with crimson cloth of gold, plain, and a girdle agreeable to the same. Item, a coronal. Item, a verge of gold. Item, a ring of gold to be put on the third finger.’
[47] The use of a seal, or signet-ring, for the purchase of property is mentioned in the Bible. In Jeremiah the formalities are thus given: ‘And I bought the field of Hanameel, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. And I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances. So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed, according to the law and custom, and that which was open’ (chap. xxxii.).
[48] In the Braybrooke Collection is a gold band-ring with a similar inscription, found at Wimbish, in Essex. It is noticed in the seventh volume of the ‘Archæological Institute Journal,’ p. 196, and is described as a serjeant-at-law’s gold ring, the hoop ⅜ of an inch in width, and of equal thickness; the motto ‘Lex regis præsidium.’
[49] Horace Walpole, in one of his letters, alludes to the ‘Fisherman’s Ring’ in his usual lively manner: ‘Mr. Chute has received a present of a diamond mourning-ring from a cousin; he calls it l’annello del Piscatore. Mr. Chute, who is unmarried, meant that his cousin was fishing for his estate.’
[50] To show how little, in former times, the sanctity of the Popes was regarded after death, Aimon, in his ‘Tableau de la Cour de Rome,’ relates that ‘when the Pope is in the last extremity, his nephews and his servants carry from the palace all the furniture they can find. Immediately after his death, the officers of the Apostolic Chamber strip the body of everything valuable, but the relations of the Pope generally forestal them, and with such promptitude that nothing remains but bare walls and the body, placed on a wretched mattress, with an old wooden candlestick and a wax end in it.’
[51] In the ‘Archæologia,’ vol. xxxvi., Mr. Octavius Morgan remarks ‘that in the beginning of the seventeenth century some attention seems to have been paid to the subject of rings in general, and several persons wrote concerning them. John Kirchmann, a learned German of Lubeck, published a treatise “De Annulis;” and about the same time Henry Kornmann wrote another small treatise “De Triplici Annulo.” Kirchmann appears to have made deep researches on the subject, and in the chapter on “Episcopal Rings” he gives their history as far as he was able to trace it, though he cannot find in ancient writers any facts relating to them earlier than the reign of Charlemagne. In gratitude to this monarch for the important services he had rendered the Church, it was decreed in the eighth century that the Emperor should have the power of electing the Popes and ordering the Holy See, and that in addition the archbishops and the bishops of the provinces should receive investiture from him. No newly-elected prelate could be consecrated until he received from the Emperor the ring and the staff; these were to be returned on the death of the prelate. But this practice was disused for a time; for we find enumerated in the old chronicles of Mayence, among the jewels in that city, “sixteen large and good pontifical rings—one of ruby, with other gems, one of emerald, one of sapphire, and one of topaz.”’
[52] The mode of giving the benediction differs in the two Churches. In the Greek it is given with the forefinger open, to form an I, the middle finger curved like a C, the ancient sigma of the Greeks, the thumb and annulary crossed form an X, and the little finger curved represents a C. All this gives IC XC, the Greek monogram of Jesus Christ. Thus, as the author of the ‘Guide of Painting,’ of Mount Athos, observes:—‘By the Divine providence of the Creator, the fingers of the hand of man, be they more or less long, are arranged so as to form the name of Christ.’
The Latin benediction is more simple, being made with the annulary and the little finger closed, the three first fingers open, symbolical of the Trinity.