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Rings in Ecclesiastical Usages: Council

The earliest document with a certain date in which mention is made of a bishop's ring is that usually cited in the 28th canon of the Council of Toledo, held in 633. The ring was of gold and jewelled, but at this Council it was ordained that the ring of a prelate reinstated in his diocese, after an unjust deposition, should be delivered to him, which was merely confirming a ceremony already ancient in the confirmation of bishops, which may be traced to the fourth century.

In the consecration of bishops in the Anglo-Saxon Church, the hands and head were anointed with oil, the crosier delivered into his hands, and the ring placed on his finger; each ceremony being accompanied with a prayer. 'There is, however,' remarks Mr. Octavius Morgan ('Archæologia,' vol. xxxvi. part ii. p. 373), 'another authority, at least contemporary with the Toledo Council, if not of earlier date. St. Isidor, Bishop of Seville, who died A.D. 636, in his work 'De Ecclesiasticis Officines' (lib. ii. cap. 5), when writing on the episcopal dignity, informs us that the staff and ring were given to the bishop on his consecration, and mentions the twofold purpose and signification of the ring, P but does not tell us from what source these insignia were derived.1 That the episcopal ring, from the earliest times, was considered a symbol of sacerdotal authority, we have many instances. In the 'Continuation of the History of Simeon of Durham' we are told that Bishop Ralph (1099) having been inveigled into a boat and his life in danger, he drew the ring which he wore from off his finger, and his notary took his seal, and they cast them into the river, being apprehensive that, as these were well known everywhere throughout England, the enemy would prepare deceitful writs by their means.

The same bishop, a month before his decease in 1128, directed that he should be carried into the church, opposite the altar, there to make confession of his sins. Placing a 1 In the 'Archæologia, vol. xxxvi., Mr. Octavius Morgan remarks 'that in the beginning of the seventeenth century some attention seems to have been paid to the subject of rings in general, and several persons wrote concerning them. John Kirchmann, a learned German of Lubeck, published a treatise De Annulis; " and about the same time Henry Kornmann wrote another small treatise "De Triplici Annulo." Kirchmann appears to have made deep researches on the subject, and in the chapter on "Episcopal Rings" he gives their history as far as he was able to trace it, though he cannot find in ancient writers any facts relating to them earlier than the reign of Charlemagne. In gratitude to this monarch for the important services he had rendered the Church, it was decreed in the eighth century that the Emperor should have the power of electing the Popes and ordering the Holy See, and that in addition the archbishops and the bishops of the provinces should receive investiture from him. No newly-elected prelate could be consecrated until he received from the Emperor the ring and the staff; these were to be returned on the death of the prelate. But this practice was disused for a time; for we find enumerated in the old chronicles of Mayence, among the jewels in that city, "sixteen large and good pontifical rings-one of ruby, with other gems, one of emerald, one of sapphire, and one of topaz."", ring upon the altar he thereby restored to the church everything of which he had deprived it, and this restitution he confirmed by charter and seal, which are still preserved in the treasury of the Dean and Chapter of Durham. To the charter was also attached the episcopal gold ring (which is no longer there). The charter states that 'he has surrendered to the Lord St. Cuthbert and his monks whatsoever he had taken from them after he came to the bishopric,' &c., 'restoring them by (placing) a ring upon the altar,' &c. Thomas à Becket, when at Rome in 1166, during his quarrel with Henry II., solemnly resigned, in the presence of the Papal Court, his episcopal ring into the hands of Pope Alexander, whom he exhorted to name a fitting successor. In the History of the Archbishops of Canterbury, by Gervase, we read that in 1179, Godfrey, Bishop-elect of St. Asaph's, resigned his bishopric by surrendering his ring. An ancient custom in the Archbishopric of Rouen was that the body of the deceased prelate, before being interred in the cathedral, was carried to the church of St. Ouen (at Rouen), where it remained exposed a whole day. The dean of the cathedral, in committing the body to the charge of the Abbot of St. Ouen, said 'Ecce,' to which the latter replied 'Est hic.' Then the dean gave the Archbishop's ring to the abbot, at the same time placing his hand in the coffin of the defunct, and saying: 'You gave it to him living; behold he is dead,' alluding to the custom of the Archbishops of Rouen being consecrated in the church of St. Ouen.