Posy Rings

With the rise of courtly love in the late medieval period came a range of different tokens to demonstrate such love. Jewellery was a popular choice - as it still is now!

Posy rings are a ring for the finger, sometimes plain, sometimes with a jewel, that contains a phrase of devotion or love as an inscription. These were sometimes in Latin, but most often in French, which was considered the language of courtly love, and was pretty widely spoken in the upper classes.

(Left: pense de moy - “think of me” c. 1400-50)

(Right: de tout mon coer - “with all my heart” c. 1400)

Love inscriptions were often repeated, indicating there were “stock phrases” for jewellers to use.

ANYWAY so I was explaining this to my boyfriend bc I enjoy infodumping (you may have noticed), and he promptly decided to kill me by going “oh like the one ring from Lord of the Rings 😁”.