Part 33

Da poi e uno osso facto in modo de una u nauicula quadrangulare alquanto longo.

Dapoi e la rasetta del pede composto de tri ossi e non de octo como fu la resetta de la mano perche el pede douea stare firmo e non mouersi a retinire qualche cosa como la mano.

Da poi li e el pectine composto da cinque ossi per che el dito grosso e inschiera cum li altri.

Da poi sono le ossa dili digiti che sono quatuordice cioe dui al dito grosso e tri per ciascaduno de li altri. Da poi sono certi musculi e molte corde a mouere contrahendo e dillatando i digiti et ultimo li sono le onghie che copreno la carnosita de li cime de li digiti como e stato dicto di digiti de le mane. E cussi a laude de dio habiamo compiuto quello che era nostra intentione e quello che dal principio noi prometessimo di narrare.

THE BLESSING OF CRAMP-RINGS

A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE TREATMENT OF EPILEPSY

by Raymond Crawfurd

The origin of this ceremony of blessing rings, by the kings and queens of England, for the cure of epilepsy and other spasmodic disorders, appears to be well attested by the evidence of many contemporary records. All alike refer it back to Edward the Confessor, or, to be more exact, to the ring which was one of the sacred relics in the shrine of the Confessor in his abbey of Westminster. Caxton, in the Golden Legend, tells the tale of this wonderful ring, as follows:

‘When the blessed King Edward had lived many years, and was fallen into great age, it happened he came riding by a church in Essex called Havering, which was at that time in hallowing, and should be dedicated in the honour of our Lord and S. John the Evangelist; wherefore the king for great devotion lighted down and tarried, while the church was in hallowing. And in the time of procession, a fair old man came to the king and demanded of him alms in the worship of God and S. John the Evangelist. Then the king found nothing ready to give, ne his almoner was not present, but he took off the ring from his finger and gave it to the poor man, whom the poor man thanked and departed. And within certain years after, two pilgrims of England went into the holy land to visit holy places there, and as they had lost their way and were gone from their fellowship, and the night approached, and they sorrowed greatly as they that wist not whither to go, and dreaded sore to be perished among wild beasts; at the last they saw a fair company of men arrayed in white clothing, with two lights borne afore them, and behind them there came a fair ancient man with white hair for age. Then these pilgrims thought to follow the light and drew nigh. Then the old man asked them what they were, and of what region, and they answered that they were pilgrims of England, and had lost their fellowship and way also. Then this old man comforted them goodly, and brought them into a fair city where was a fair cenacle honestly arrayed with all manner of dainties, and when they had well refreshed them and rested there all night, on the morn this fair old man went with them, and brought them in the right way again. And he was glad to hear them talk of the welfare and holiness of their king S. Edward. And when he should depart from them, then he told them what he was and said: I am John the Evangelist, and say ye unto Edward your king that I greet him right well, by the token that he gave to me this ring with his own hands at the hallowing of my church, which ring ye shall deliver to him again. And say ye to him that he dispose his goods, for within six months he shall be in the joy of heaven with me, where he shall have his reward for his chastity and for his good living.... And when he had delivered to them the ring he departed from them suddenly. And soon after they came home and did their message to the king, and delivered to him the ring, and said that S. John the Evangelist sent it to him.’

Shortly after this Edward departed this life, and was laid in his abbey of Westminster, where the usual abundant harvest of miraculous cures was enacted at his shrine. In the above story we have also the explanation of one synonym of epilepsy, the ‘morbus sancti Iohannis’.

The further history of the ring may be gleaned from several sources, but notably from a MS. by one Richard Sporley, a monk of the abbey, entitled, ‘De fundacione ecclesie Westm’, dated A.D. 1450, and now in the British Museum.

St. Edward’s ring was deposited with his corpse in the tomb in A.D. 1066. He was translated at midnight of October 13, 1163, when his body was found to be incorrupt. Abbot Lawrence took the robes from the body and made them into three copes, and gave the ring as a sacred relic to the Abbey:

‘Dompnus Laurentius quondam abbas huius loci ... sed et annulo eiusdem (Sancti Edwardi) quem Sancto Iohanni quondam tradidit, quem et ipse de paradiso remisit, elapsis annis duobus et dimidio, postea in nocte translationis de digito regis tulit, et pro miraculo in loco isto custodiri iussit.’

Plate XXXIX. MIRACLES AT THE TOMB OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

XIIIth Century]

The story of the ring is also depicted in the miniatures of a beautiful illuminated Norman-French MS. Life of St. Edward the King, dating from the thirteenth century, and now in the University Library at Cambridge. The single miniature reproduced here (Plate XXXIX) shows seven blind men, restored to sight, kneeling at the shrine, while a priest reads the Te Deum. At the sides of the shrine are figures on pillars of St. John as the palmer (left), and St. Edward with his ring (right). No cure of epilepsy, so-called cramp, is depicted among the many miraculous cures recorded in the MS. The earliest extant records of the use of the ring for this purpose date from the reign of Edward II.

Anstis cites the following entry from the last chapter of the Constitutions of the Household of Edward II: ‘Item le Roi doit offrer de certein le jour de grant vendredi a crouce. v s. queux il est acustumez receivre devers lui a la mene le chapelein afair ent anulx a donner pur medicine az divers gentz’: the language, however, of the entry leaves little room to doubt that the custom was already an established one. At his coronation, too, Edward II offered a pound of gold wrought into a figure representing St. Edward holding a ring, and a mark of gold, or eight ounces, worked into the figure of a pilgrim putting forth his hand to receive the ring: and the presumption is that this gold was to be converted into cramp-rings.

We have detailed accounts of the manner of this ceremony of hallowing cramp-rings dating from early Tudor times, and there is sufficient evidence in the brief notices of earlier date to show that the ceremonial observed by the Plantagenet kings was essentially similar. On Good Friday, when the king went to adore the cross, he used to make an offering of money, which was redeemed by a sum of equivalent value: the money so received was converted into rings, which were subsequently hallowed by the king. In Tudor times the hallowing of the rings took place on Good Friday, so that the offering of the money must have been made at some previous time, or this part of the ritual may have actually become obsolete. The change of custom was effected some time between 9 Edward IV (1470-1) and 13 Henry VIII (1521-2), and was probably therefore the work of Henry VII, who, as we know, materially altered the kindred ceremonial of Touching for the Evil.

A MS. copy of the Orders of the King of England’s Household, 13 Henry VIII, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, contains, ‘The Order of the Kynge, on Good Friday, touching the cominge to Service, Hallowinge of the Crampe Rings, and Offeringe and Creepinge to the Crosse’. It is quoted in extenso in the Northumberland Household Book, and also by Mansell in his Monumenta Ritualia. It runs as follows:

‘First the king to come to the closett or to the chappell with the lords and noblemen wayting on him, without any sword to bee borne before him on that day, and there to tarry in his travers till the bishop and deane have brought forth the crucifix out of the vestry (the almoner reading the service of the cramp rings) layd upon a cushion before the high altar, and then the huishers shall lay a carpet before y^t for ye king to creepe to the crosse upon: and y^t done, there shall be a fourme set upon the carpet before the crucifix, and a cushion layd before it for the king to kneele on; and the Master of the jewell house shal be ther ready with the crampe rings in a basin or basins of silver: the king shall kneele upon the sayd cushion before the fourme, and then must the clerke of the closett bee ready with the booke conteyninge ye service of the hallowing of the said rings, and the almoner must kneel upon the right hand of the king, holding of the sayd booke, and when y^t is done the king shall rise and go to the high altar, where an huisher must be ready with a cushion to lay for his grace to kneele upon, and the greatest Lord or Lords being then present shall take the basin or basins with the rings and bear them after the king, and then deliver them to the king to offer; and this done the queen shall come down out of her closett or travers into the chappell with ladies and gentlewomen wayters on her, and creepe to the crosse; and that done she shall returne againe into her closett or travers, and then the ladies shall come downe and creepe to the crosse, and when they have done, the Lords and noblemen shall in likewise.’

Creeping to the Cross seems to have been practised in noble households as well as in that of the king. The following entry is found in the Northumberland Household Book (temp. Henry VIII):

‘Item my Lord useth and accustometh yerely when his Lordship is at home to cause to be delyveride for the Offerings of my Lordis Sone and Heire the Lord Percy upon the said Good Friday When he crepith the Crosse ijd. Ande for every of my Yonge Maisters my Lords Yonger Sonnes after jd. to every of them for their Offerings when they Crepe the Cross the said Good Friday iiijd.’

Many of the entries in the accounts of the Plantagenet kings show that the homage was paid to the Gneyth Cross. This cross was held in great veneration, and, according to tradition, was made of wood from the true Cross presented by a pilgrim to Richard Cœur de Lion: no satisfactory explanation of its name is forthcoming. It seems to have been transferred from place to place. Under Edward I we find it in the royal chapel of the Priory of Plympton: under Edward II in the royal chapel within the Tower: under Edward III in the private chapel of the royal Manor of Clipstone, and later in the same reign in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, where it was in the time of Henry VII. The purpose of the ceremony is set forth in a Proclamation of February 26, 30 Henry VIII, now in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries: ‘On Good Friday it shall be declared howe creepyng of the Crosse signifyeth an humblynge of ourselfe to Christe before the Crosse, and the kyssynge of it a memorie of our redemption made upon the Crosse.’ When Convocation, in A.D. 1536, abolished some of the old ceremonies, on the ground that they were superstitious, this of Creeping to the Cross was retained as a laudable and edifying custom.

The following records, taken from the Household Books and Account Rolls of the times, serve to establish the continuity of the ceremonial subsequent to its first mention in the time of Edward II.

In the Eleemosyna Roll of 9 Edward III occurs the following entry:

‘In oblacione domini Regis ad crucem de Gneythe die parasceues in capella sua, infra mannerium suum de Clipstone, in precium duorum florencium de Florencia, xiiii die Aprilis, vis. viijd., et in denariis quos posuit pro dictis florenciis reassumptis pro annulis medicinalibus inde faciendis, eodem die, vis.: summa xiis. viiid.’ [For the offering of the lord King to the Gneythe Cross on Good Friday in his chapel, in his manor of Clipstone, to the value of two florins, on the 14th day of April, vis. viiid., and for the pence bestowed in redemption of the said florins for the making of medicinal rings, on the same day, vis.: total xiis. viiid.]

Again, in the Eleemosyna Roll of the following year, 10 Edward III:

‘In oblacione domini Regis ad crucem de Gneyth in die parasceues apud Eltham, ̅x̅x̅i̅x̅ die Marcii, vs., et pro iisdem denariis reassumptis pro annulis inde faciendis per manus Iohannis de Crokeford eodem die, xs.’