Does anyone have any info on these rings? I looked in my books and couldn't find anything.

Thanks!

John has a book put out by the Museum of London called Treasures and Trinkets, subtitled "Jewellery in London from Pre-Roman times to the 1930's."

In a chapter entitled "Symbols of Love", I counted 8 poesy rings dated to the 15th c. The inscriptions are mostly of a similar vein as the one Gwen mentioned- e.g. "nul autre" (no other) "mon cor avez (have my heart- the catalog entry says this is perhaps the commonest medieval posy motto).

Perusing the rest of the chapter, it looks like posy rings continued to be popular through the 17th century, although by that time the mottoes are very different: e.g."Pitye The Poowr" "Joynd in one by God alone" "A Verteous Wife preserveth life".

The book also has a handy appendix of poesy ring inscriptions, in line-drawings so you can see the mottoes "unrolled" but still get a sense of the letter-forms.

The 15th c. examples have clearly gothic letter forms, while the later ones look, well, later. Either loose, flowy script or chunky block capitals, both looking more like humanist letters.

Gwen- I'll have John bring the book Sunday so you can take a look!

I'm trying to look for some poesy rings in museum collections (other than the one previously posted). The British Museum has a later example -- an 18th century gold ring with stars on the outside, and "Many are the stars I see but in my eye no star like thee" on the inside -- to find it, use their Compass system. (I think they have some earlier ones as well, but they aren't in the Compass system yet.)

Some original poesy rings do come up occasionally on eBay, but generally they are the 17th century golden rings. They're generally a plain gold band on the outside, engraved with a motto on the inside -- a lot like one that appeared on the Antiques Roadshow UK.