But there is further the evidence of the actual existence of Queen
Mary’s Illuminated MS. Manual, in the Library of the Roman Catholic
Cathedral of Westminster, giving the Office of the Blessing of
Cramp-rings in Latin, with rubrics in English showing it to be the
form made use of by herself. It also contains a miniature painting of
Queen Mary performing the service of consecration. The whole office is
transcribed below. A full description of the Manual will be found in
the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries_,[257] at a meeting of
whom it was shown and described by Sir Henry Ellis. Sparrow Simpson has
also described it in the _Journal of the Archaeological Association_,
1871. It is a ‘small quarto volume, eight and a half inches in height
by six and three-eighths in width’. Cardinal Wiseman, to whom it
formerly belonged, has written on the fly-leaf, ‘Queen Mary’s manual
for blessing cramp-rings and touching for the Evil. Bound 1850.’ The
cover is spangled with roses and fleurs-de-lis, together with the
Queen’s monogram MR. ‘The volume consists of nineteen leaves of vellum,
each surrounded with a rich border, and filled either with miniatures
or with the two offices which it comprises. Then follow four ruled
leaves and fifteen plain leaves without manuscript.... On the recto of
leaf 1 the royal arms of Philip and Mary are emblazoned, surrounded
by a garter and surmounted by a crown. A rich border containing the
rose, the fleur-de-lis, and the pomegranate, together with a shield
bearing the cross of St. George, completes the decorations of the
page.’ The red and white roses represent Queen Mary’s double title
to the throne of England as the heiress of the houses of Lancaster
and York, the fleur-de-lis her claim to the throne of France, and
the pomegranate of Granada her descent from Ferdinand and Isabella.
The Cross of St. George is derived from the shield of the Order of
the Garter. ‘On the verso of this leaf is an illumination (Plate XL)
representing the interior of a chapel with an altar furnished with
curtains, candlesticks, and crucifix. At a prayer-desk before the altar
kneels the Queen; before her is an open book, and on either side two
golden basins containing cramp-rings.’ Leaves 2 to 10 contain ‘certayn
prayo’s to be vsed by the quenes heighnes in the consecration of the
crampe ryngs’. A study of the rubrics, which are in English, suffices
‘to show the essentials for the consecration of the rings: the prayers,
the royal touch, the holy water.... The recto of leaf 11 is filled
with an illumination of the Crucifixion with St. Mary and St. John. In
the border are the instruments of the Passion--the spear, the reed and
sponge, the hammer and pincers, three nails, two scourges, and (a very
unusual addition) a centre-bit of the same form as that now in use. On
the verso of this leaf is a very interesting full-page illumination.
At a prayer-desk, on which is an open book, kneels the Queen, turning
to the right (the dexter side of the picture), wearing the head-dress
familiar to us in all her portraits. Before her kneels a sufferer,
apparently a young man, whose bare and swollen neck the Queen holds
between her two hands. Behind him, holding open the collar of the
patient’s coat, kneels the “clarke of the closett” in a cassock and
gown, and with a tonsured head. On the left of the prayer-desk stands
“the chaplen”, a bald-headed, venerable man in a long cassock, a
somewhat short surplice with full sleeves, and the “stole abowte his
neck” ordered in the rubric, reading the appointed office. The Queen
wears a brown dress cut square at the neck, white sleeves, and a lace
ruff and waist-bands. The office for the healing follows, commencing on
folio _12a_, and ending on folio _19a_.
‘The rubrics are in red ink, bright and fresh; and each page has a rich
border of scrolls, leaves, flowers, and fruit, with occasional figures
of children, &c. I enumerate the most important subjects. Folio _1b_,
David with head of Goliath, St. George and the Dragon, and a child
with a skull; folio _2b_, arms of the city of London; folio _3a_,
VERITAS TEMPORIS FILIA (the Queen’s favourite motto), with a sword and
sceptre; folios _3b_ and _4a_, large terminal figures with grapes;
folio _4a_, arms of France and England quarterly; folio _4b_, D̅NS MIHI
ADIVTOR; folios _5a_ and _b_, portcullis and rose; folios _6a_ and _b_,
PACIENTIA and PRVDĒTIA, with allegorical figures; folios _7a_ and _b_,
CHARITAS and IVSTICIA; folios _8a_ and _b_, FIDES and SPES; folios _9a_
and _b_, FORTITVDO and TEMPERANCIA.’
With the death of Mary, the ceremonial seems finally to have fallen
into disuse. There is, however, a passage in the _Historia Anglicana
Ecclesiastica_ of Nicholas Harpsfield,[258] which was written entirely
in the reign of Elizabeth, which seems to throw some doubt on the
point. The words are as follows:
‘Quin et annulus ille, de quo diximus, magna in Westmonasteriensi
Londini coenobio postea reverentia reservatus, adversus comitialem
morbum multis profuit: indeque etiam ortum, ut ad sacram
parasceuen Reges Angliae certos annulos statis quibusdam precibus
et caerimoniis consecrare consueverint, adversus eundem morbum
salutares. Quae consuetudo et ad nostra usque tempora perducta
est, multique huiusmodi annulorum beneficium, nostra etiam aetate,
senserunt.’ [And further the above-mentioned ring was reverently
preserved afterwards in the monastery of Westminster in London, and
relieved many of epilepsy. That too was the origin of the custom
of the Kings of England on Good Friday consecrating certain rings
with set prayers and ceremonies, for the cure of the same disease.
Which custom has persisted even down to our own times, and many
even in our own lifetimes have derived benefit from rings of this
kind.]
Nicholas Harpsfield, though he did not write till the reign of
Elizabeth, was born as early as A.D. 1519, so that his words are
consistent with discontinuance of the ceremony after the time of Queen
Mary.
It remains to consider what diseased states were embraced by the term
‘cramp’. Epilepsy, convulsions, and rheumatism certainly. All these
terms have in common the idea of muscular contraction or spasm, and
their relation in usage to one another may be represented graphically
as under:
Convulsion
\
Cramp ═ Rheumatism.
/
Epilepsy
Confusion of these terms is far more marked in medical than in
lay writers; but at the same time there is little doubt that the
conservative sentiment inspired by the royal ceremonial kept the term
‘cramp’ alive in a sense that was all but obsolete in the common
diction.
Chaucer applies ‘crampe’ to muscular spasm:
But wel he felte about his herte crepe ...
The crampe of death, to streyne him by the herte.[259]
Linacre, as we have seen, speaks of cramp-rings, in 1518, as a charm
against _spasms_, while about the same year Polydore Vergil speaks
of the royal cramp-rings as a cure for the _morbus comitialis_. Each
of these two writers clearly indicates epilepsy. In 1526 Magnus
speaks definitely of cramp-rings as relieving a man lying in the
_falling-sickness_, a term habitually applied to epilepsy. Nicholas
Harpsfield too, writing in the middle of the reign of Elizabeth,
speaks of cramp-rings blessed by the kings as remedies for the _morbus
comitialis_. In all probability royal cramp-rings were used for
epilepsy and epilepsy only, but it is quite possible, and I am inclined
to think probable, that other cramp-rings had a less exclusive use.
Bacon’s description of cramp in his _Natural and Experimental History_
is fairly explicit and obviously does not embrace epilepsy: ‘The cramp
cometh of contraction of sinews, which is manifest, in that it comes
either by cold or dryness.’
Shakespeare recognizes both epilepsy and rheumatism as entities apart
from cramp. Epilepsy he seems to associate more with falling than with
convulsion: thus, of the fit that attacked Caesar when the crown was
offered to him, he writes:
_Casca._ He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and
was speechless.
_Brutus._ ‘Tis very like: he hath the falling-sickness.[260]
‘Cramp’ is used by Shakespeare for muscular spasms or contractures, and
he links the term on the one side to rheumatism, and on the other to
convulsions, in the following passages:
For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up.[261]
Parolles says:
‘In a retreat he outruns any lackey: marry, in coming on he has the
cramp.’[262]
Prospero says:
Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews
With aged cramps.[263]
and
‘Leander ... went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and
being taken with the cramp was drowned.’[264]
Robert Bayford, in his _Enchiridion Medicum_ published in 1655,
includes both wry-neck and convulsions under the heading cramp, but he
treats epilepsy separately on the ground that, as we know to be the
case, it is not always associated with convulsions. He has no word
‘rheumatism’ at all.
Pepys (1664) carried about with him a hare’s foot as a charm against
_colic_, i.e. against muscular spasm. Among Indians, Norwegians, and
Central Africans, the foot of an elk was a charm against epilepsy.
Pepys also recites a charm against cramp:
Cramp, be thou faintless
As our Lady was sinless
When she bare Jesus.
In this charm the word cramp seems to refer to the painful _muscular
spasms_ of labour. Pepys, as we know, suffered from colic, but not
from epilepsy, so in using a hare’s foot as a charm against colic
he was probably employing a charm against epilepsy. In like manner
the ‘rheumatic ring’ of to-day seems to be the lineal descendant of
the cramp-ring of aforetime, and the confusion of nomenclature has
doubtless not affected its efficacy. Folk-medicine serves rather to
confirm than to elucidate the confusion, for in Suffolk moles’ feet are
carried as a charm against rheumatism, but in Sussex against cramp. In
Devonshire a dried frog is worn as a cure for fits.
Boswell, in his description of Johnson at the time of their tour to
the Hebrides, uses the word ‘cramp’ in its earlier significance.
‘His head,’ he says, ‘and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind
of motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently
disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, of the nature of that
distemper called St. Vitus’s dance.’
It may be asked how it came about that rings were used in the first
instance as a remedy for epilepsy. It has occurred to me that their
use may have originated in the time-honoured belief that an epileptic
seizure may be aborted by ligature of a limb or part above the
situation in which the warning ‘aura’ commences. Galen, Alexander of
Tralles, Rhazes, and Avicenna, among the earlier writers on medicine,
all recommend the measure.