Engagement Ring In France 47

Engagement Ring In France.

By Aamir Mannan.

The mid-7th century Visigothic Code required "that when the ceremony of betrothal has been performed, ..., and the ring shall have been given or accepted as a pledge, although nothing may have been committed to writing, the promise shall, under no circumstances, be broken."^[11][12]

In 860 AD, Pope Nicholas I wrote a letter to Boris I of Bulgaria in reply to questions regarding differences between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox practices. Pope Nicholas describes how in the Western church the man gives his betrothed an engagement ring^[13][14][15] At the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, convoked by Pope Innocent III, theBanns of marriage was instituted, prohibiting clandestine marriages and requiring that marriages be made public in advance.^[16] Some legal scholars have seen in this a parallel with the engagement-ring tradition described by Pope Nicholas I.