Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/296

268 Nettlebed, situate on the south side of Bredon Hill, near the ancient camp. On the lower part of the ring appears a cavity formed to receive a gem. The ring of base metal, plated with gold, and inscribed with a cabalistic or talismanic legend, represented in p. 267, was recently dug up, near to the church-yard at Bredicot. It appears to be of the fourteenth century.

A ring of later date, formed of silver considerably alloyed or plated with baser metal, and strongly gilt, found in dredging in the bed of the Severn, in January last, at a place called Saxon's or Saxton's Lode, a little southward of Upton, supplies a good example of the signet thumb ring of the fifteenth century; the hoop is grooved spirally, it weighs 17 dwts. 18 grs., and exhibits the initial H. Signet rings of this kind were worn by rich citizens, or persons of substance, not entitled to bear arms. Falstaff bragged that in his earlier years he had been so slender in figure that he could readily have crept through an "alderman's thumb ring," and a ring thus worn, probably, as more conspicuous, appears to have been considered as appropriate to the customary attire of a civic dignitary at a much later period. A character in the Lord Mayor's show, in the year 1664, is described as "habited like a grave citizen,—gold girdle and gloves hung thereon, rings on his fingers, and a seal ring on his thumb."

The Rev. C. Boutell, M.A., Local Secretary, placed at the disposal of the Committee the accompanying engravings of two early stone coffin-lids, the one discovered in the year 1843, in the church-yard at Bircham-Tofts, in the county of Norfolk, and remarkable for the singular arrangement of the sculptured letters on either side the cross: the other, now