In a very interesting paper by Mr. Harrod, F.S.A., in the ‘Archæologia’ (vol. xl. part 2) we have particulars of the custom, which prevailed in the Middle Ages, of widows taking a vow of chastity, and receiving a particular robe and ring. Sir Harris Nicolas printed in the ‘Testamenta Vetusta’ an abstract of the will of Lady Alice West, of Hinton Marcel, widow of Sir Thomas West, dated in 1395, and proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. There is a bequest to her son Thomas, amongst other things of ‘a ring with which I was yspoused to God.’ Sir Harris rightly says that this could not have been her marriage-ring, and it was certain she had not entered a convent. This is still more clearly made out by a reference to the transcript of the will in the registers of the Prerogative Court. Gough, in his ‘Sepulchral Monuments,’ quotes a story, from Matthew Paris, of one Cecily Sandford, a lady of condition, who, on her deathbed, having passed through the usual forms with her confessor, and he ordering her attendants to take off a gold ring he observed on her finger, although just expiring, recovered herself enough to tell them she would never part with it, as she intended carrying it to heaven with her into the presence of her celestial spouse, in testimony of her constant observance of her vow, and to receive the promised reward. She had, it appears, made a vow of perpetual widowhood, and with her _wedding_-ring assumed the russet habit, the usual sign of such a resolution. ‘In the “Colchester Chronicle,” portions of which are printed in Cromwell’s “History of Colchester,” one entry appears to confirm the conjecture that the whole was composed in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, “Anno Dn̄i ccciij. Helena mortuo Constancio perpetuam vovit viduitatem.” ‘By the testament of Katharine Rippelingham, dated February 8, 1473, who calls herself “advowes,” she desires to be buried in the church of Baynardes Castell of London, where she was a parishioner; and by her will, in which she gives herself the title of “widow advowes,” she shows herself in the full exercise of her rights of property, devising estates, carrying out awards, and adjusting family differences, and in an undated codicil she bequeaths to her daughter’s daughter, Alice Saint John, “_her gold ring_ with a diamante sette therein, _wherewith she was ‘sacred.’_”’ ‘Sir Gilbert Denys, Knight of Syston, 1422: “If Margaret my wife will after my death vow a vow of chastity, I give her all my moveable goods, she paying my debts and providing for my children; and, if she will not vow a vow of chastity, I desire that my goods may be distributed, or divided into three equal parts, &c.” ‘John Brakenbury, in 1487, leaves his mother certain real estate, “with that condicion that she never mary, _the which she promised afore the parson and the parish of Thymmylbe_, and if she kepe not that promise, I will she be content with that which was my fader’s will, which she had every peny.”