The History of Poesy Rings

Rings with inscriptions date back nearly as long as writing has existed. Signet rings with images, often carved stone intaglios but also solid gold or silver, can be dated to Ancient Sumeria, Egypt and the Mediterranean. Once writing developed it quickly made its way onto rings, particularly in Egyptian and Greek cultures.

The earliest wedding rings date to Ancient Egypt and were eventually incorporated by the Greeks and Romans. By the time of the Byzantine Empire, marriage rings featuring religious inscriptions were common and as these tokens became to be associated with love, during the age of the Norman conquest and courtly grace, the poesy ring was born.

Exchanged as small gifts with hidden messages, many of these rings were composed before the English language was standardized, and so the words and spellings are wonderful time capsules of the era.

We reference many of these old inscriptions when we make our poesy rings. Often the same words can be found with multiple spellings on different pieces. Since the English language is living, and has changed throughout its history, we love to keep the spelling idiosyncrasies of the eras such as the interchangeable u/v* (where 'love' can be spelled 'loue') or an extra e that has since fallen off the ends of words, like the 'alle" in "alle my trvst" or the 'keepe' in "keepe promiss"

We love these sweet sayings and like to keep the spelling characteristics when we make our versions of these special rings. 

Below is a list of some of the phrases on rings in the collection of the British Museum. We’ve kept the original spelling as it is inscribed on the rings and, where applicable, we’ve included additional context in the form of word breaks, such as dots, x’s, or stars as they exist in the original pieces.

 

*Have you noticed this (particularly in architectural inscriptions?) Dating back to the Roman era, where Latin didn’t differentiate between the u/v sounds–kind of like how the letter ‘C’ can be pronounced with a soft (s) or hard (k) sound. As the English language developed it borrowed heavily from the Latin alphabet, and this quirk was maintained though the middle ages, until the letters ‘u’ and ‘v’ started to acquire the phonetic sounds they have today.