MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN RING 9TH-10TH CENTURY AD, SIZE 4 3/4

Gilt bronze, Size 4 ¾. Swelling from the bottom, 1.8-2.6mm width. The top impress with a mark of IHS in “pearled” surround. The stamp or die is outsized for this ring and obviously made for impressing rings and perhaps pendants of larger sizes. The ring was made as a wedding ring for the small finger and was impressed in compliance with Charlemangne’s 782 Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniaewhich  prescribed laws for Saxons which included being baptized. Failure to do so was punishable by death. “If any one of the race of the Saxons hereafter concealed among them shall have wished to hide himself unbaptized, and shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a pagan, let him be punished by death”. Notably, the abbreviation, IHS first appeared on the coins of Justinian II about 700 AD, contemporaneous with this ring.