What are termed DECADE-rings, having ten projections at intervals all
round the hoop, were common in former times, and were used as beads for
repeating _Aves_. In the Braybrooke Collection a ring is mentioned with
eleven knobs, the last being larger than the others, indicating ten _Aves_
and one _Paternoster_. Each of the knobs is separated by three small
beaded dots across the hoop from its neighbour, probably symbolic of the
Trinity. At a meeting of the Archæological Institute at Norwich, in 1847,
a curious ring was exhibited dating from the reign of Henry VI., found at
St. Faith’s, near Norwich. It is engrailed, presenting ten cusps, and may
be placed in the class of decade-rings. On the facet is engraved the
figure of St. Mary Magdalen (or St. Barbara?), and on the outer circle ‘de
bon cver’ (‘de bon cœur’).
Another ring of the same date is of a more delicate workmanship, and bears
on the facet, St. Christopher, the hoop engrailed like the last, and has
the legend ‘en. bo. n. ane’ (‘en bon an’).
At the same exhibition of antiquities among the rings of latten or
base-metal was shown one engraved with the figure of a female saint,
probably St. Catherine; the hoop formed with eleven bosses, date about
1450. A similar brass ring bearing the same figure, found near British and
Roman weapons in the bed of the Thames, at Kingston, engraved in Jesse’s
‘Gleanings in Natural History,’ is here represented. This ring has eleven
bosses, and, although found in the immediate vicinity of vestiges of an
earlier date, may be regarded as of mediæval date, having been
accidentally thrown together in the alluvial deposit.
[Illustration: Latten ring, with figure of St. Catherine (?).]
[Illustration: Thumb-ring.]
Two decade-rings of the fifteenth century were also exhibited at the
Norwich meeting, bearing the monogram I.H.S. one found in Norwich Castle,
and the other at Heigham.
A gold ring with ten knobs, was found in 1846, at Denbigh, in pulling down
an old house. Its weight is a quarter of an ounce. A similar ring of base
metal, discovered in a tomb in York Minster, is preserved in the treasury
of that church; and another example, in silver, of precisely similar form,
was found in Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire.
Mr. Edward Hoare, of Cork, writing to the editor of the ‘Archæological
Journal,’ observes that, as far as he has been able to obtain information
about decade-rings, they were worn by some classes of religious during the
hours of repose, so that on awaking during the night they might repeat a
certain number of prayers, marking them by the beads or knobs of the
rings. If worn on any finger except the thumb, at other periods of time
than those of repose, it must have been as a sort of penance, and perhaps
these rings were sometimes so used. The addition of a twelfth boss marked
the repetition of a creed.
[Illustration: Silver Decade-ring. (In the possession of E. Hoare, Esq.)]
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