THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 35
to
be recited. A good example of kdecade ring is one of silver in the
British Museum. Tne ten projections for the paternosters are very
marked and the eleventh, for the creed, which forms the bezel, has the
form of a crucifix, the cross resting on three steps\ This rises to a
considerable relative height above the hoop. Such a ring could scarcely
be worn with comfork its liturgical use evidently being the paramount
idea of the maker.54
The
gold and silver chaplet rings, with a cross and ten beads or bosses in
relief upon the hoop, were frequently used by the Knights of Malta, in
the eighteenth century; indeed this type of ring is said to have been
invented by them. Their use as substitutes for the less convenient
chaplet was spreading, until in 1836 the matter was referred by Pope
Gregory XVI to the tribunal of penitentiaries. Its decision,
transmitted by the Cardinal Penitentiary Castracane, as to the question
" whether the gold or silver rings, surrounded by ten bosses, which are
used by some pious persons for the recitation of the Rosary of the
Blessed Virgin, can be blessed with the appropriate indulgences," was
in the negative.55
The
ring-money used by the ancient Gauls and Britons illustrates the
employment of what might be ornamental objects as currency. An
exceptionally fine specimen made of nearly pure gold was recently found
by a farmer while he was ploughing a field near Wood-
54 O.
M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early
Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later" (British Museum),
London, 1912, p. 122, No. 792, pi. xi.
85
X. Barbier de Montault, " Le costume et les usages ecclésiastiques
selon la tradition romaine," Paris, 1897, vol. i, pp. 176, 177.
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