Massive silver mourning ring inscribed in Old French, dort couat (rest in peace). Found at Huy near Statte, Belgium. French. Fifteenth Century
Albert Figdor Collection, Vienna
It is said that only one episcopal ring from Anglo-Saxon times has been preserved in England. This relic forms part of the Waterton Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum; it is of gold, nielloed, and shows the letters of the name Ahlstan. This name was borne by a Bishop of Sherborne who held the office from 824 to 867 A.D., his death occurring four years before the accession of Alfred the Great.[436]
Niello is a mixture of silver, copper, lead, crude sulphur, and borax; frequently a little antimony is added. The mixture is fused and pressed into the design engraved upon a silver plate; when it has cooled off it forms a deep black, brilliant, and tough, though not hard, substance, like an enamel. The antimony on cooling, spreads slightly, thus obviating any danger of undue contraction of the alloy, which might fail to fill out the design exactly; occasionally, however, the antimony expands unequally, producing some slight irregularities of outline or surface. Sometimes the alloy is applied to the silver background of the design, instead of to the design itself, so that the latter appears white against a rich dark foundation. This variety of enamelling was already used in Roman times; in our day it is most extensively employed in Russia, where very beautiful work of the kind is done, the lines being of hair-like fineness and delicacy.
In 886, at the degradation of two bishops who had been consecrated without the consent of their metropolitan, their episcopal vestments were rent, their croziers broken on their heads, and their episcopal rings rudely snatched from their fingers. Here, as in cases of military degradation, the ignominious removal of the insignia of rank served to give public emphasis to the sentence passed upon the condemned.[437]
The Cathedral of Chichester has yielded a number of fine specimens of mediæval episcopal rings. Notable among these as a curiosity is one that belonged to Bishop Seffrid who died in 1151, for it is set with a Gnostic gem showing the well-known cock-headed figure generally cut to represent the divine principle the Gnostics called Abrasax (or Abraxas). This is an intaglio on jasper, and the ring was found in the bishop’s tomb. The fact that he was willing to wear it shows either that he was ignorant of its being a Gnostic, and hence an heretical design, or else that he was more than usually tolerant. Another of the Chichester rings came from the tomb of Bishop Hilary (1146–1169); it is of massive gold and is set with a sapphire. When the tomb was opened the ring was on the thumb of the skeleton. In a stone coffin on which were cut the letters Episcopus, with no personal name, there was found a ring adorned with an octagonal sapphire, on four sides of which was set a small emerald. As the sarcophagus contained a pastoral staff and remains of a vestment, this was undoubtedly an episcopal ring. It will have been remarked that of these rings two were set with sapphires, but the ring of Archbishop Sewall (d. 1258), found in his tomb in the Cathedral of York, and that from the tomb of Archbishop Greenfield (d. 1315), were each set with a ruby.[438]
Gold ring with inscription. “Buredruth” is probably a personal name, and the Greek characters alpha and omega should have a religious significance. Late Saxon
British Museum