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Betrothal and Wedding Rings: Pope

In Southerne's 'Maid's Last Prayer' (Act iv. vol. i. p. 67) we find:-'Marry him I must, and wear my wedding-ring upon my thumb, too, that I'm resolved.' An instance of several wedding-rings being used at the bridal ceremony is related by Burcard, master of the ceremonies to the Pope's Chapel from Sixtus IV. to Julius II. At the marriage of a daughter of Pope Innocent VIII. to Lewis of Arragon, Marquis of Geracio (January 3, 1492), the pair approached the Pope, and, both being on their knees, the husband put the ring on the proper finger of the left hand of his spouse, then several rings on the other fingers of both hands. U that the statute establishing the Liturgy was not repealed, and he was loth to have his daughter turned back upon him for want of a legal marriage.' The Rev. George Bull, subsequently Bishop of St.

David's, also in these Presbyterian times, who married a Miss Gregory, in defiance of tyrannical enactments used a wedding-ring with the motto: 'Bene parere, parêre, parare det mihi Deus.' (See chapter on 'Posy, Motto, and Inscription Rings.') The Puritan scruples against the wedding-ring were much criticised at the time :- Because the wedding-ring's a fashion old, And signifies, by the purity of gold, The purity required i' the married pair, And by the rotundity the union fair, Which ought to be between them endless, for No other reason, we that use abhor.

A Long-winded Lay-lecture (published 1674).

They will not hear of wedding-rings For to be us'd in their marriage; But say they're superstitious things, And do religion much disparage:

They are but vain, and things profane; Wherefore, now, no wit bespeaks them, So to be tyed unto the bride, But do it as the spirit moves them.

A Curtain-lecture ('Loyal Songs, vol. i. No. 15).