Stirrup Ring with Garnet
, England, late 13th-14th century
Stirrup Ring with Garnet
Description
Gold ring with D-section hoop widening towards the shoulders with flattened sides to form a stirrup-shaped bezel set with a garnet cabochon. The ring shows signs of wear through age and is in good wearable condition.
Provenance:
Found in 1993/4 near Maldon, Essex. Three miles north of Maldon is the village of Wickham Bishops, registered in the Doomsday book in 1086. In the medieval period the manor and surrounding land belonged to the Bishops of London.
Literature:
The term “stirrup ring” was coined during the nineteenth century and describes the outline of the hoop with bezel. Such a ring is illustrated in a thirteenth-century drawing by Matthew Paris, and the ring was evidently made in 1140 and given by Eleanor of Aquitaine to the abbot of St. Albans (see: Ward et al, 1981, no. 121; Hindman with Miller 2015, p. 138 and no. 35. The stirrup ring was popular between the twelfth to fifteenth century, and the forerunner for the form goes back to the eleventh century (Chadour 1994, vol. I, no. 565).
Stirrup rings are found in museum collections, such as the British Museum, London (1885, 0615.1; 1980, 1202.1; AF 1855); Museum of London (A 1274); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Oman 1930, no. 251; inv. no. 65-1871); Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Scarisbrick/Henig 2003, Plate 6,1); Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (57.10986), The Griffin Collection in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Hindman with Miller 2015. no. 35, see also 2015.697 and 2021.174; Scarisbrick 2024, no. 61); Alice and Louis Koch Collection in the Swiss National Museum, Zurich (Chadour vol.1, no. 565 with further parallels) and Hashimoto Collection in the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (Scarisbrick 2004, no. 109).
For the source and meaning of gems in the Middle Ages, see: Marian Campbell, Medieval Jewellery in Europe 1100-1500, London 2009, pp. 28-33, 72.
In the Middle Ages such rings usually set with sapphires were often worn by ecclesiastical dignitaries, which may confirm the provenance of this ring found near Maldon in Essex. At the time the surrounding land and nearby village, named Wickhams Bishop, belonged to the Bishops of London.