Louis VII., of France, laid the first stone of the porch and two towers of the abbey church of St. Denis, in 1140. When the officiating minister pronounced the words ‘lapides pretiosi omnes muri tui et turres, Jerusalem, gemmis ædificabunter,’ the King took a costly ring from his finger, and threw it into the foundations. Several of the other persons present followed the example. Saint Honoré, eighth Bishop of Amiens, in the sixteenth century, left his pastoral ring to the treasury of the cathedral, but it was sold by one of his successors, Bishop Gervain. It was afterwards repurchased and replaced in the treasury by Bishop Godefroy. We read in the account of the spoliation of the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury (temp. Henry VIII.), of a stone ‘with an Angell of gold poynting thereunto, offered there by a King of France’ (which King Henry put) ‘into a ring, and wore it on his thumb.’ The shrine blazed with gold and jewels; the wooden sides were plated with gold, and damasked with gold wire: cramped together on this gold ground were innumerable jewels, pearls, sapphires, balasses, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, and also ‘in the midst of the gold, rings, or cameos of sculptured agates, cornelians, and onyx stones.’ The stone that the rapacious Henry took was said to be as large as a hen’s egg, or a thumb-nail, and was commonly called the ‘Regale of France’ offered to the shrine by Louis VII. of France, when on a pilgrimage there.[54] At the meeting of the Archæological Institute at Norwich in 1847 Sir Thomas Beevor exhibited a silver ring, with a zigzag tooling and the word ‘✠Dancas✠’ signifying a token of thanks, or acknowledgment of services received, or, possibly, an _ex voto_, in accordance with the common usage of suspending such ornaments near the shrines of saints, as appears in the inventories of St. Cuthbert’s shrine, &c. Adam Sodbury, fifty-third Abbot of Glastonbury, gave to the abbey, among other precious gifts, ‘a gold ring with a stone called Peritot, which was on the finger of St. Thomas the Martyr, when he fell by the swords of wicked men.’ * * * * * Among what may be called ‘religious’ rings, I would notice those which are termed ‘decade,’ ‘reliquary,’ ‘pilgrims,’ &c., some of which are highly interesting, and serve to show how, in past ages, the zeal of our forefathers was animated by these rings, or, as some would call them, these _aids_ to superstition. In olden wills they are frequently mentioned as heir-looms of great value.