The principal types of the rings used as insignia, religious or secular, or as signets, as well as of those devoted to some special purpose or believed to possess talismanic or magic virtue are treated of in other chapters. There are many rings, however, which owe their chief or only interest to their association with some particular historic personage, event or period, while often the mere fact that the ornament has been owned by a famous person suffices to make it precious and interesting; in a number of cases the ring itself has been closely connected with some important historic happening or else with some cherished legend. Examples of this are the ring of Essex in Elizabeth’s time, and the legendary ring of Edward the Confessor, regarding the stone setting of which several discrepant accounts exist. The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris has in its Cabinet des Médailles, two massive gold rings, in each of which the _chaton_ is formed by an ancient coin. In one is set a rare gold quinarius of Maximinus (235–238 A.D.) with his effigy, and the ring is believed to have been made during this giant emperor’s brief reign; the other bears a golden solidus probably of Clotaire II, King of the Franks, who reigned from 584 to 628 A.D. This coin shows a figure of the king with the name Chlotarius Rex, and the mint-mark of the city of Arras. The coin is more than ¾ inch in diameter.[277] In a Frankish sepulchre at Laubenheim, near Bingen, Hessen-Darmstadt, was found a gold ring on the bezel of which is engraved the head of a woman, turned to the right, around which are the letters of the Gothic name Hunila. A princess of this name was married, about 280 A.D., to Quintus Bonosius, one of the Thirty Tyrants who established themselves in the Roman Empire during the short and troubled reign of Probus (280–281). While the ring we describe cannot be assigned to such an early period, but probably belongs to the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century of our era, the intrinsic value and the workmanship, superior for the place and time, render it likely that this Hunila, also, was of royal race and station. In the sepulchre which yielded this ring there was a chain of amber and amethyst beads.[278]