Notes and Queries, Number 169, January 22, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, Number 169, January 22, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 169, January 22, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
The prayers used at the ceremony of blessing the rings on Good Friday are
published in Waldron's _Literary Museum_. Cardinal Wiseman has in his
possession a MS. containing both the ceremony for the blessing the cramp
rings, and the ceremony for the touching for the king's evil. At the
commencement of the MS. are emblazoned the arms of Philip and Mary: the
first ceremony is headed, "Certain prayers to be used by the quenes heignes
in the consecration of the crampe rynges." Accompanying it is an
illumination representing the queen kneeling, with a dish, containing the
rings to be blessed, on each side of her. The second ceremony is entitled,
"The ceremonye for y^e heling of them that be diseased with the kynges
evill;" and has its illumination of Mary kneeling and placing her hands
upon the neck of the diseased person, who is presented to her by the clerk;
while the chaplain, in alb and stole, kneels on the other side. The MS. was
exhibited at a meeting of the Archæological Institute on 6th June, 1851.
Hearne, in one of his manuscript diaries in the Bodleian, lv. 190.,
mentions having seen certain prayers to be used by Queen Mary at the
blessing of cramp rings. May not this be the identical MS. alluded to?
But, to come to W. C. T.'s immediate question, "When did the use of these
blest rings by our sovereigns cease?" The use never ceased till the change
of religion. In addition to the evidence already given of the custom in the
fifteenth century, may be added several testimonies of its continuance all
through the sixteenth century. Lord Berners, when ambassador to the Emperor
Charles V., writing "to my Lord Cardinal's grace" from Saragossa, June 31,
1518, says, "If your grace remember me with some crampe ryngs, ye shall doo
a thing muche looked for; and I trust to bestowe thaym well with goddes
grace." (_Harl. MS._ 295. f. 119. See also Polydore Virgil, _Hist._ i. 8.;
and Harpsfield.) Andrew Boorde, in his _Introduction to Knowledge_,
mentions the blessing of these rings: "The kynges of England doth halow
every yere crampe rynges, y^e which rynges worne on one's finger doth helpe
them whych hath the crampe:" and again, in his _Breviary of Health_, 1557,
f. 166., mentions as a remedy against the cramp, "The kynge's majestie hath
a great helpe in this matter, in halowing crampe ringes, and so given
without money or petition."
A curious remnant or corruption of the use of cramp rings is given by Mr.
G. Rokewode, who says that in Suffolk "the use of cramp rings, as a
preservative against fits, is not entirely abandoned. Instances occur where
nine young men of a parish each subscribe a crooked sixpence, to be moulded
into a ring, for a young woman afflicted with this malady." (_History,
&c._, 1838, Introd. p. xxvi.)
CEYREP.
* * * * *
TURNER'S VIEW OF LAMBETH PALACE.
(Vol. vii., p. 15.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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