In describing the finger-ring found in the grave of the Venerable Bede, the writer of a brief account of Durham Cathedral adds: ‘No priest during the reign of Catholicity was buried or enshrined without his ring.’ The practice may have prevailed generally, as many instances of rings recovered from the graves of ecclesiastics show, but it was more particularly the usage of prelates. Martene (‘De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus’) remarks: ‘Episcopus debet habere annulum, quia sponsus est. Cæteri sacerdotes non, quia sponsi non sunt, sed amici sponsi, vel vicarii.’
The bones of St. Dunstan were discovered in the time of William, fortieth abbot of Glastonbury: a ring was on the finger-bone of this saint.
William, the twenty-second abbot of St. Alban’s Abbey, who died in 1235, was buried in pontifical habits ‘with a ring on his finger.’
Richard de Gerbery, forty-fifth Bishop of Amiens, in the thirteenth century, died in 1210, and was buried in the cathedral, in pontificalibus, with mitre, ring, and ivory cross.
When the body of St. John of Beverley (died 721) was translated into a new shrine, about the year 1037, a ring, among other articles, was found in his coffin. We have a much earlier instance cited by Aringhi, that the ring of St Caius (283-296) was found in his tomb: ‘intra sepulchrum tria Diocletiani Imperatoris numismata, sub quo coronatus fuerat, et Sanctissimi Pontificis annulus adinventatus est.’
A gold ring was found in the tomb of St. Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester, who died in 640.
Mr. E. Waterton mentions a remarkable ring, set with fine opal, preserved at Mayence Cathedral, where it was found with an enamelled crosier in the tomb, as was supposed, of Archbishop Sigfroi III. (1249).
Ring of Thierry, Bishop of Verdun.
In the Londesborough Collection is the ring of Thierry, Bishop of Verdun (who died in 1165), found in his tomb in 1829. It is of gold, with a sapphire, an irregular oval with five capsular marks on the face; the shank, two winged dragons, between the heads of which is the inscription AVE MARIA GRATIA. This ring was procured in exchange from the collection of M. Failly, Inspector of Customs, at Lyons in 1848.