MEDIEVAL FINGER RING

1400

Description: A complete gold finger ring made of a flattened band engraved on the exterior with a French inscription in gothic or 'blackletter' script, interspersed with a foliate design between the script (flowers, leaves and branches). The inscription reads "un bon cour", "cour" is an alternate spelling of the word Coeur, a common form of spelling in Medieval rings, see for example British Museum collections 1893,0601.256, 1967,1208.3, 1967,1208.4, AF.934 and AF.905. The inscription translates to "a good heart". There is also an engraving on the internal band made up of a single wheat stalk followed by what looks like two sets of initials separated by a vertical line but are unable to distinguish.Discussion: "un bon cour", and its variants, is a commonly occurring inscription on medieval rings. The French language was commonly adopted for expressions of love, even on rings of English manufacture in the Middle Ages.