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. In a miniature in the ‘Heures d’Anne de Bretagne’ (1500), representing St. Nicholas and the miracle of the three children, the bishop is represented with one hand extended in the act of blessing, with a large ring over two fingers. A ring is on one of the fingers of the other hand. In paintings of the early bishops of the Church they are figured with gloves having the ruby on the back of the hand, and the official ring on the fore-finger of the right hand sometimes, but not always, introduced. Dart, in his ‘History of Canterbury,’ gives an inventory of the _Ornamenta Ecclesiastica_ taken in 1315. One of the _annuli pontificales_ was of elaborate character, and is thus described: ‘Annulus quadratus magnus cum smaragdine oblongo, et quatuor pramis, et quatuor garnettis.’ The others had sapphires surrounded by smaller gems. One of these rings was set ‘cum sapphiro nigro in quatuor cramponibus ex omne parte discoperto.’ In the ‘Archæological Journal’ (vol. ii., 1854) is an interesting account by the late Mr. Albert Way, of the ecclesiastical mortuary or corse-present: ‘Whether this was originally a composition for offerings omitted, or in the nature of a payment for sepulture, frequently consisted, amongst other things of a ring. Thus in the archdeaconry of Chester, on the death of every priest, his best signet, or ring, with various other objects belonging to the bishop as being the archdeacon.’