The Social Lives of Medieval Rings

Although historic rings frequently served as a social currency and as personal expressions of status, research on these functions is often complicated by an absence of evidence identifying owners and makers as well as stylistic continuities across time and space. Yet recent scholarship has emphasised the potential of these precious objects to illuminate aspects of female agency, dynastic self-fashioning, global material networks and affective expression. This volume builds on and extends that scholarship, setting out to deepen our understanding of how, as intimate sartorial accessories and signs of authority, rings could operate as portable instruments of devotion, allegiance and power.

[T]he collection as a whole is rich and stimulating. Jasperse and her contributors have assembled a treasure-trove of case-studies that whet the appetite for further consideration. It illuminates not only the multifaceted meanings of these diminutive objects but also the complex interplay between material culture, identity and meaning-making in the medieval world.

-- Stella Wisgrill * The Burlington Magazine 168 (February 2026): 179-80 *

In her introduction to the essay collection, The Social Lives of Medieval Rings, the editor, Jitske Jasperse, invites readers to take in the eight contributions “individually” (27). She also suggests that the book as a whole “argues” for “more nuanced stories” about how rings were crafted and forged connections among people. Given the geographical, chronological, and methodological disparities in the essays, the former way of engaging with the book (dipping into it to consult a specific case study) by specialists interested in (say) early modern Galician saints’ cults, or Depression-era American antiquity collections, or Islamic Anadalusi signets, will likely prevail. However, anyone who plows through all 250-odd pages of text will certainly emerge with a more sophisticated appreciation for the use of rings in western Eurasian cultures after Roman hegemony. And just the book’s abundant, well-labelled, and high-quality images would be enough to make the effort worthwhile.

-- Paolo Squatriti * The Medieval Review (2026): 2026.03.