The Universal Ring
Of all the jewels of history, most widespread in time and space, and upon the human body is the ring. From the crown of the head to the tip of the toes, the circular band has been an adornment and a symbol. In the ears, around the neck, tight about the biceps, loose about the wrist, across the chest, around the waist, in iron fetters at the ankle in days of old to indicate the slave or in the self-imposed “slave anklet” of thin gold today: men and women have worn rings of grass, of wood, of bone, of metal. But especially upon the fingers there have been all sorts of rings, for many purposes.
The Magic Ring
One of the earliest values found in rings was doubtless magic. This worked in many ways, according to the beliefs of different times and peoples. Simply to put a ring on another person’s finger was to bind that person to you—an early magical belief which has endured as a symbol in the engagement and the wedding ring. To protect the wearer against the powers of evil in the world, rings are adorned with potent gems, or carved with potent symbols. Turn the emerald in a ring on a poised snake, and the snake was stricken blind, as the nineteenth-century poet Moore remembers in Lalla Rookh:
The snake itself, being associated with the sybils and other prophets of old and linked with man in earliest Bible story and man’s most fateful hour, is also a most potent and frequent device. It might be carved upon the ring, or the whole ring itself might represent a serpent, eating its own tail—like the worm Ouroboros that winds around the world and keeps it from bursting asunder—or with its head nestling upon its body, watching for the approach of danger. Being itself a lurking danger, the snake obviously was most fit to search out hidden evil. A snake ring of gold with ruby eyes was often on the finger of George IV of England.
Divining Rings
Rings of hieroglyphic symbols, the sphinx, or later cabalistic devices, were used by diviners and seers. Sometimes, to the unwitting eye, the ring seemed an innocent adornment; when a soothsayer wished to make use of a magic formula, a cunningly hinged portion opened to reveal the mystical designs. In the Middle Ages, rings of astrologers and soothsayers multiplied. Rings with signs of the zodiac were used to cast a nativity. The powers of numbers were explored and exploited on rings. The word A B R A X A S, frequent on rings of the time, is said to have drawn its special power from the number force of the letters, which add up to 365 and thus encompass the entire year. Perhaps that is why Leap Year is said to be unlucky for men.
A common design, born no doubt of the early sphinx, was the figure of a fantastic monster compounded of many beasts. Imagination created many of these hybrid and extremely powerful forms. Associated with the A B R A X A S was a creature with the head of a cock, the body of a man with outstretched hands holding a shield and a whip, the legs spread out and becoming serpents with darting fangs. Especially sought for security against shipwreck was a ring engraved with a human head adorned with an elephant’s trunk grasping a trident, symbol of mastery over the sea.
Renaissance Remedy Rings
The Renaissance, resplendent with rings, made many to be used as amulets to bring good fortune, or charms to ward off evil. Cellini made several such for his noble patrons; they seemed, however, not to stem the tide of sudden deaths. Against various vindictive powers special gems were once more utilized, jacinth to bring good fortune to voyagers, sapphires to keep the eyes keen (as some today employ the humbler carrot), garnet to soothe the bite of hornet or wasp.
The common people, even more afflicted by the pains of life, also sought these ringed remedies. The toadstone ring was deemed effective. Several actual stones have since been called by this name—no one knows precisely what it was—but the effective ones were generated by the toad, possibly as nature’s compensation for the creature’s ugliness. The toadstone was credited, as the Oxford Dictionary puts it, “with alexipharmic or therapeutic virtues.” The best known allusion to the toadstone is in Shakespeare’s As You Like it, when the banished Duke in the forest reflects upon his state:
It must by no means be thought that the toadstone is merely a literary fiction. Queen Elizabeth, on her Progress in 1558, was given a “toade stone set in golde.” Sir Walter Scott, in 1812, called it “sovereign for protecting new-born children and their mothers from the power of the fairies.” Against fairies, perhaps the toadstone worked.
More questionable was the power of a ring against specific diseases, although to the edge of this century country folk in rustic parts, as in back-lying Suffolk, wore special rings that were blessed against cramps.
A more mechanical method of using rings in witchery or divination has been to pitch or spin them, or to suspend them and let them swing, in such a way as to have them indicate Yes or No; or, by falling upon haphazardly arranged letters, spell out a message.
Visibility Rings
Legends of rings that make one invisible are universal. An unusually potent one, we are told in a tale of medieval Europe, was given by the Queen Mother to Otnit, King of Lombardy, when he set out to seek the hand of the Soldan’s daughter. In addition to making him invisible at will, the ring always foiled his detractors by indicating to the owner the right road toward his destination.
A ring set with a carbuncle possessed the opposite property, of making one visible in pitch dark. Thus, in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus when Martius looks into the deep pit and cries that Bassianus is lying there, his comrades ask how he can see, and he replies:
Religious Rings
The early magician or medicine man, when he became the priest, did not relinquish his ring. As far back as we find traces of worship, we find religious uses of the ring. Their pious symbolism was perhaps most fully detailed by Pope Innocent III, when on May 29, 1205 he sent to King John of England four golden rings each set with a colored stone, and explained their symbolism in this way: The endless shape of the ring reminds us of eternity, and that we are all journeyers through time to eternity. The number of rings equals the four virtues that comprise constancy of mind: justice, fortitude, prudence, and temperance. The metal signifies wisdom from on high, which is as gold purified by fire. The four stones are an emerald, green emblem of faith; a sapphire, blue emblem of hope; a garnet, red emblem of charity; and a topaz, bright emblem of good works. The four rings, the four stones, the metal, and the shape, make ten aspects: ten is the perfect number, being the unity of nature plus the trinity of God multiplied and fructified by itself.
The religious symbolism of rings has not lapsed. Even today the Pope wears the traditional annulus piscatoris, the Fisherman’s Ring, which shows St. Peter in a boat, casting a net to haul in the faithful from the waters of the world. Clerics of various ranks and orders wear special rings. Nuns wear a ring to signify their symbolic marriage to Jesus.
Less common today, but used throughout Europe for centuries, is the reliquary ring. This band bears a small cabinet, case, compartment, or box, usually elaborately carved and bejeweled, within which was a splinter of the True Cross or the holy relic of a martyred saint.
We shall speak later of the wedding ring, which while a social is also a religious symbol. Annually on Ascension Day the Doge of Venice sets a wedding ring onto a finger of the sea, to denote that the Adriatic is servant to the city just as a wife is to her mate.
Practical Rings
From earliest times, too, rings have been enlisted for more prosaic duties. Signet rings have served romantic ends in history and legend, as well as supplying the king’s or the merchant’s identifying seal. Noblemen slain in battle have oftentimes been identified by their rings, which bore the crests of their noble houses. Until recently every Chinese scholar and mandarin wore a ring, or carried a little ornamented bar of ivory or jade, topped with intaglio symbols that stamped his name. Such stamps are to be seen on many paintings, and at the end of passages of calligraphy.
The practice of sealing envelopes with stamped wax is no longer a widespread western custom, and even red tape has lost its redder seal; hence the signet ring, once most common among men, has been largely replaced by rings bearing the insignia of a high school or college class or a fraternal order.
Among other practical uses of finger rings may be mentioned their use as money by the Gauls and other tribes of northern Europe. Women have had mirrors set in their rings, to give them constant glimpses of beauty—or a chance for quick repair. In eighteenth-century England and later—my grandfather wore one—were rings capped with a little hammer to press the tobacco down in pipes.
And there were rings for fighting. Roman gladiators added iron rings to the power of their fists, sometimes even enlarging these with a bar across the entire back of the hand, held by a leather thong across the palm—predecessors of the infamous “brass knuckles.”
Poison Rings
Even more sinister, though mainly obsolete except in spy stories, is the murderous poison ring. In some such rings, the poison could be ejected through a tiny aperture in a point of the design, as in the lion’s claw of a ring of Cesare Borgia’s. This point would normally be on the side of the ring at the back of the hand, but it would be slipped around to the palm outstretched to shake the hand of the unsuspecting victim. A firm pressure of greeting became at once goodbye.
Another of the Borgias, Pope Alexander VI, would ask the man he destined to death to open a cabinet for him. He gave the man a key ring, and as the bar twisted in the massive lock, a prick injected the poison into the pressing hand.
More frequent than these pressing devices, however, were rings with a secret compartment or concealed receptacle that could be opened, to pour out the poison, so that it might be mixed unnoticed when one was filling a glass of wine for an unwanted guest.
This type of ring was also most useful for emergency suicides. When the great Carthaginian commander Hannibal was captured by the Romans in 183 B.C., he ended his life by biting into the soft metal cap of his ring which was filled with poison. In 1794 the French philosopher Condorcet, arrested in the Revolution, made his exodus from a world in turmoil through the aid of a poison ring. Numerous accounts of international espionage in recent wars make it seem that, as a release from torture and psychological brainwashing, the suicidal use of the poison ring is not outworn. But many a ring, originally constructed to conceal a poison, before it found rest in a museum was used as a conveyor of perfume.
A more humdrum use of the ring has been not to end but to mark the passing hours. The first time-keeping ring was a miniature sundial. As soon as escapements were compact enough, watches were set as the crowns of rings; I have mentioned that two hundred years ago Mme. de Pompadour wore a watch in a gold ring encircled with diamonds.
Honorary Rings
A ring has often been used as a mark, token, or reward of distinction or great service. Originally for valor in battle, these rings are now used to mark distinction in many fields. In Germany for generations, the greatest actor has worn the Ifflandring, which he takes from his hand to bestow upon the performer of the next generation whom he deems his most worthy successor. Another noted ring is the Mozart Ring, awarded to those who meritoriously continue the composer’s tradition. There are today but three wearers of the Mozart Ring: Bruno Walter, Herbert von Karajan, and Carl Boehm.
Posies and Lovers’ Rings
The prettiest rings are those that have been used in courtship. Before the brilliant solitaire, the large diamond that marks the formal engagement, all sorts of posy rings, as they were called, were popular gifts for centuries. An English book of 1624 bears the title “Love’s Garland, or Posies for rings, handkerchiefs, and gloves, and such pretty tokens as lovers send their loves.” This was in the main a collection of little rhyming remarks or pithy sayings, to be engraved on rings, or on the inside of ring bands when the ring itself was decorated with stones in the form of flowers or lovers’ knots. A favorite was the Latin motto Amor vincit omnia, (Love conquers all), which Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales put on a bracelet of the Prioress. But simple English phrases abounded on these rings. “I am yours” is blunt enough to serve. “My love is true To none but you” might make a suspicious maiden (but what shy maid in love would question so?) wonder to how many the donor had already shown love that was false. More to be trusted, perhaps, is the pious soul that sent the motto: “In God and thee My joy shall be.” A wit (or a gambler) might complacently have inscribed “I cannot show The love I O.” A less wary but more learned fellow might proclaim, inside the ring: “Let reason rule affection.” The practice of having rings engraved with such posies was so common that in Shakespeare’s As You Like It the melancholy Jacques taunts Orlando:
“You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?”
I quote Shakespeare not because he is the most given to such references, but because he is the best known of the many writers in whose works they abound: jewels in jeweled phrases.
In other forms than posies, rings carry the language of love. They may, of course, in engraved letters or letters shaped of stones, give the initials or the name of the beloved. Or letters may record a significant event in the course of the courtship, as when a cryptically boastful Frenchman set a ring with the letters L A C D, which pronounced in French sound “Elle a cédé”—“She has yielded!”
More subtly and more sentimentally such announcements may be made, moments recorded, or feelings expressed, through the initial letters of the gems. Thus a beloved named Adele might be given a ring with stones set in the following order: amethyst, diamond, emerald, lapis lazuli, emerald; the first letters of the names of the stones spell her name. A favorite such token is one arranged so that the initial letters of the stones spell “Regard Love”; hence, these have sometimes been called regard rings. Rings have been used to express sentiment less soft, as well; politically minded Irish, in Revolution times, were wearing rings that spelled Repeal.
For those with the enthusiasm and the funds, almost an entire alphabet of gem stones can be used. Omitting duplicates, one may run along, to spell one’s message, with amber, bloodstone, carnelian, diamond, emerald, fluorite, garnet, hyacinth, indicolite, jasper, kunzite, lapis lazuli, moonstone, nephrite, opal, pearl, quartz, ruby, sapphire, turquoise, variscite, willemite, zircon. This fashion of conveying one’s sentiments has never grown obsolete and is continually renewed.
The Nuptial Ring
When courtship reaches the more definite stage of betrothal, rings are still the order of the day. As early as the second century B. C. the Romans, whose marriages were not love matches but family affairs, gave formal engagement rings. A study of Shakespeare reveals forty-five references to rings and jewels, eleven being of Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, the pearl. For example, betrothal rings are exchanged by Troilus and Cressida; and such an exchange builds the sunrise comedy scene at the close of The Merchant of Venice. For friends, the fede (faithful) ring developed, a band of gold representing clasped hands. For lovers, the gimmal or gemmal, the twin ring, was popular; this consisted of two rings intimately intertwined, which ingeniously came apart so that each lover could wear half of the pair.
Climax of the deft pursuit and fond allure, the wedding ring has always been a treasured symbol. An early ecclesiastic told why: “The form of the ring being circular, that is, round and without end, importeth thus, that mutual love and heartfelt affection shall roundly flow from one to the other, as in a circle, continuously and forever.”
Although the wedding ring for a long time was invariably of gold, fashions in recent years have been changing. Our grandmothers were proud to wear a plain wide band. After the First World War, when gold gravitated toward Fort Knox, the bands grew narrower and platinum wedding rings were introduced. The gold itself, instead of a plain band, might be drawn as though the ring were fashioned of strands, or hammered into tiny bars with corners around the circle, in various modernistic patterns. The practice also began of using diamonds in wedding rings; never one large brilliant, outthrust like the happy engagement solitaire, but a row of smaller stones inset, almost flush with the band. Today the plain wide wedding band is circling back into favor, along with the olden practice of putting a ring on the finger not only of the bride but of the groom. It is a mutual compact.
In ancient times, much more elaborate rings were used for the ceremony, sometimes so large that immediately after the wedding they were put aside, replaced by smaller rings, and put on again only at the burial day. Among the Jews the ring might have an adornment in the shape of a tower, and be inscribed with the Hebrew words for Good luck, Mazul-tov.
Less Solemn Marriage Rings
Among the country folk in late medieval times, marriage was sometimes a quickly arranged affair, and rush rings were often used for rushed marriages. The rush ring weddings, at which a “hedge-priest” officiated, were intended neither to be legal nor to endure. Some more coarsely cynical ceremonies were actually held with the assistance of the town butcher, with the bride and groom standing on opposite sides of a side of beef, being joined together with the traditional words, “till death do us part.”
Among more playful frolics was the practice of the bachelors among the Renaissance Italians, and the Italianate Englishmen, of wearing an engagement ring on the hat or in the ear, so as to invite and incite the maidens. In England, the rings were more often confined to the hand, and a language of the fingers developed. A ring on the first (little) finger indicated that the man was seeking a wife; on the second (which we now call the third finger) that he had found her; on the third, that the knot had been tied; and on the fourth, that he had every intention of remaining a bachelor. Similarly, for the woman: first finger, not keeping company; second finger, engaged; third, married; and fourth, intending to die a maid.
It will be noted that in this system the wedding ring did not appear on what is now the usual finger. And indeed it was only gradually that what we now call the third finger of the left hand became the permanent choice for the bond of matrimony. Those who must have reasons have found three for this choice.
The first reason is physiological. It developed when various theories of the blood circulated freely, before the blood itself was known to circulate. The Romans spoke of the vena amoris, the vein of love, but the idea was earlier expressed by the Greeks, who credited it to the Egyptians. This vein of love, they declared, connected the third finger of the left hand directly with the heart, which is the seat, as everyone knows, of the tender passion.
The second reason is the product of logical elimination. The analysis was made by Macrobius, a Roman commentator of the late fourth century. The thumb, Macrobius declared, is too busy to be set apart for special dedication. Because of the shape of the hand, the forefinger and the little finger are only half protected. The middle finger (being in his time used by mothers as a practical suppository and by doctors for anal exploration) was too opprobrious. This left only what he called the pronubus, the one “for the nuptial,” which has ever since been called the ring finger. On the left hand, to indicate the woman’s subjection, it is the engagement finger.
The third explanation grows out of old church practice. The bride was blessed “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” Starting with the thumb, if the bridegroom touched one finger with each name, he would complete the trinity with the middle finger, then put the ring on the next one. That finger is the husband’s to whom the woman owes allegiance next to God.
For a long time, it should be mentioned, the wedding ring was worn on the right hand; sometimes on the little finger, as the least obtrusive; while in many eastern lands it has been worn upon the thumb.
Counting Fingers
In his Treatise of Spousals written in 1680, Henry Swinburne declared that the wedding ring “is to be worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, next unto the little finger.” Since his time there has been confusion in the counting.
If we name the fingers, the matter is simple enough: holding the arms outstretched, palms down, and starting from the inside, we have the thumb, the index finger (or pointer or forefinger), the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little finger (or, to use the word borrowed from children, the pinkie).
Numbers complicated the picture. Swinburne counted the thumb as the first finger. The Elizabethans a century before him, as we noted in their practice of indicating their attitude toward matrimony, counted the little finger as the first. The common system of counting today starts not with the thumb, but next to it. Thus the index finger is the first; and the engagement and the wedding ring adorn the third finger of the left hand. Perhaps it is wiser to speak of the fingers by their names. The important thing is that they be fitly adorned.
Memorial Rings
Lighthearted ceremonies were no more than flyspecks on a pattern of permanent matrimony, with no frills of separation or easy divorce. Marriages were “made in heaven”; their earthly aspect ended only at the grave. A married couple had a long time to be fond of or at least to grow used to one another. Death made a great gap in the pattern of family life, so that it came to be marked by a memorial ring. The more pious, indeed, did not await the fearful summons to wear its grim reminder; many wore mortuary rings that, like the skeleton at the feast, kept their final fate solemnly in the minds of the living. These might be shaped with a death’s head, or open to reveal a skeleton or a crucifix. Or they might present a somber motto: “Breathe pain, death gain,” or the forthright counsel, “Live to die.” The favorite stone for such rings, of course, was jet.
Many a will provided money for the purchase of memorial rings by family or friends, thus hoping to keep the dead one alive in thoughts. “Bind me to your hearts with bands of gold.” When Anne of Cleves, divorced wife of Henry VIII, died in 1557, she left money for memorial rings. In 1616 William Shakespeare left twenty-six shillings sixpence apiece to Hamnet Sadler, William Reynolds and “to my fellows,” the actors John Hemynge, Richard Burbage, and Henry Cundell, to buy them rings in his memory. He left no other jewels, no books, and his second-best bed to his wife.
While the 250 odd rings of England’s last King Henry were probably seldom equalled for one person, a more modest but more representative listing was given, in 1649, of the rings of a country lady. She possessed, among other jewels, a toadstone ring, two Turkies (turquoises), six thumb rings, three alderman’s seals, five gemmels and four death’s heads. Always, in every period and every guise, the realm of jewelry has been marked by the reign of the ring.