The tiny gold love token lost centuries ago

Warrington Museum is packed full of wondrous treasures, including a tiny medieval love token lost by its owner over 500 years ago.

It’s made of very pure gold. Even now it’s so bright compared to a lot of rings you see. It’s never suffered from any plough damage so it looks as pristine as the day it fell on the ground over 500 years ago.

On the front of it the writing says ‘pensez de moy’, which translates as ‘think of me’. On the back a series of five petaled flowers could well be forget-me-nots, which supports the idea of this small brooch being some kind of love or betrothal ring.

It dates to the 15th century and was described by the British Museum as a ‘medieval annular brooch’, but it’s also known as a fede ring, which means faith ring.

Faith rings date to the Roman period when they would have been worn on the finger, but by the Medieval period they had evolved into a brooch with a pin on the back.

If you think of the medieval garments of that period they were quite high-necked and to preserve their modesty people would use a brooch like this to pin the garment together. It would have been for a lady’s gown – it’s not big enough for the cloak of a male rider, in fact you couldn’t even fasten it on a very sturdy cloak because of its diameter.

It has two hands clasped together, either as a symbol of betrothal or a sign that two people who connected with this token made a vow to each other. It’s actually surprisingly small, just over 22mm, so it’s a tiny little thing, which is possibly why it got lost – if indeed it was lost.

It’s obviously high status, if nothing else because of its weight in gold, which was your portable wealth as it is today when times are hard. It’s not like a Welsh love token where the man, if he had any skill as a carver, could actually make it himself – this would have been commissioned, so it’s not something a person would just casually hand out – there was obviously some thought in it.

All we initially knew about it was that it was a stray find, but a medieval ring was also found in the area of Winwick, which led us to the enigma of why this brooch just turned up where it did.

Most people won’t have heard of Winwick, but the small Cheshire village to the north of Warrington is one of the most historic parts of the present day town with origins going back to the Bronze Age period.

There are a number of barrows around there and we already have in our collections some very fine Bronze Age axe heads, spears and others items from the area. It’s also known to be an early Christian site and is mentioned in the accounts of the Anglo Saxons in in the North West.

In early medieval times there was a church, which eventually became one of the richest livings in the country. The brooch was found in Lower Older Route Farm which was on an important medieval route that would have taken travelers past the moated platform site at Winwick to the royal hunting forest of Burton Wood.

But is our ring a tale of romance, and the first time she goes out riding with it she has not fastened it tightly enough and by the time she has found out she’s lost it and she’s distraught?

Or is it from a romance gone wrong? They have had a lover’s tiff and she’s thrown it away in a fit of pique. If so, what became of them afterwards?

We don’t know whether this is a tale of courtly love or whether we’re in the middle of a medieval soap opera.

The ring was acquired by Warrington Museum and Art Gallery through the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Read more about it on the finds.org.uk database.