'''Cramp-rings''' are rings anciently worn as a cure for cramp and "falling-sickness" or epilepsy.<ref Name="Skeat">{{cite book |author=Walter William Skeat |author2=Anthony Lawson | title = A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words: Especially from the Dramatists | publisher = Clarendon Press | year= 1914 | location = Original from the University of Michigan | url = https://archive.org/details/aglossarytudora00mayhgoog | page = [https://archive.org/details/aglossarytudora00mayhgoog/page/n121 97] }}</ref> The legend is that the first one was presented to Edward the Confessor by a pilgrim on his return from Jerusalem, its miraculous properties being explained to the king. At his death it passed into the keeping of the abbot of Westminster, by whom it was used medically and was known as St Edwards Ring. From that time the belief grew that the successors of Edward inherited his powers, and that the rings blessed by them worked cures.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
Hence arose the custom for the successive sovereigns of England each year on Good Friday formally to bless a number of '''cramp-rings'''. A service was held; prayers and psalms were said; and holy water, which had been blessed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, was poured over the rings, which were always of gold or silver, and made from the metal that the king offered to the Cross on Good Friday. The ceremony survived until the reign of Edward VI and was briefly revived by Mary I.<ref>Judith Richards, "Examples and Admonitions", Alice Hunt & Anna Whitelock, ''Tudor Queenship'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 37.</ref> The belief in the curative powers of similar circlets of sacred metal has lasted to the present day.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
Marc Bloch devotes a whole chapter of ''Thaumaturgic Kings'' to a description and history of cramp-rings that gave English kings the power to work cures.<ref>''Les Rois thaumaturges. Étude sur le caractère supernaturel attribué à la puissance royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre'' (Book II, chapter ii)</ref>
==References== {{reflist}} * {{EB1911|wstitle=Cramp-rings|volume=7|page=364}}
{{Superstitions}}
{{EB1911 article with no significant updates}}
Category:Culture of England Category:Rings (jewellery) Category:Traditional medicine Category:Superstitions
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