Mr. E. Waterton gives his explanation thus, and there could be no better authority: ‘It appears that bishops formerly wore their rings on the index of their right hand, being the middle one of the three fingers which they extend when they are giving their blessing, but when celebrating mass they passed the ring on to the annular. They wore it on the index as the fore-finger was indicative of silence, that they ought to communicate the divine mysteries only to the worthy. Gregory IV., in 827, ordered that the episcopal ring should not be worn on the left, but on the right hand, as it was more distinguished (nobile) and was the hand with which the blessing was imparted.’[52]
Episcopal Thumb-ring.
The episcopal ring is now always worn on the annular finger of the right hand, and bishops never wear more than one. In the pictures of the early Italian masters, however, and on sepulchral effigies, bishops are represented with many rings, some of which are not unfrequently on the second joint of the fingers. A thumb-ring is often seen; one is represented (p. 219) belonging to a late Dean of St. Patrick’s, the sketch of which was made by the late Mr. Fairholt, when it was in the possession of Mr. Huxtable, F.S.A., in 1847. It is of bronze, thickly gilt, and set with a crystal. In Raffaelle’s portrait of Julius II. the Pope is represented as wearing six rings. Certain it is, as late as the year 1516, the Popes occasionally wore two or more rings.
As the large pontifical ring was of a size sufficient to enable the bishop to pass it over the silk glove which he wears when pontificating, a smaller, or guard ring, was used to keep it on the finger.
In the Waterton Collection is a very pale gold episcopal ring, with oblong hexagonal bezel, set with a pale cabochon sapphire, and the hoop divided into square compartments chased with rosettes, and finished on the shoulders with monsters’ heads. French, of the early part of the fifteenth century.
In the Anglo-Saxon annals, an archbishop bequeaths a ring in his will, and a king sends a golden ring, enriched with a precious stone, as a present to a bishop. So great was the extravagance among the clergy for these ornaments that Elfric, in his ‘canons,’ found it necessary to exhort the ecclesiastics ‘not to be proud with their rings.’ In the mediæval romances we are told that at the marriage of Sir Degrevant, there came
Erchebyschopbz with ryng
Mo than fiftene.
In the effigy of Bishop Oldham (died 1519), in Exeter Cathedral, the uplifted hands of the recumbent figure, which are pressed together, are adorned with no less than seven large rings on the fingers, three being on the right, and four on the left hand. In addition to these, a single signet-ring of extraordinary size is represented as worn over both the thumbs.
But the number of these rings is exceeded by far in the case of the arm of St. Blaize, exhibited in the Cathedral of Brunswick, on the fingers of which are no less than fourteen rings. This relic was brought from Palestine by Henry the Lion in the eleventh century, and is encased in silver.