Ladies with Rings

[MarcoP]

I don't know where the fourth finger/heart/artery thing came out of: perhaps a distortion due to the medieval courtly love fad?

The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I previously linked ("A Ring on the Little Finger: Andreas Capellanus and Medieval Chiromancy", Stefano Rapisarda, 2006) talks of the origin of this idea at p.5. The paper quotes Macrobius (early 5th century):

A discussion of that very point [i.e. which hand and which finger a ring should be worn] had come to us from Egypt, and I was in doubt for a while whether to call it just an idle tale or a true explanation. But later, after consulting some books on anatomy, I discovered the truth; that there is a certain nerve which has its origin in the heart and runs from there to the finger next to the little finger of the left hand...; and that this is the reason why it seemed good to the men of old to encircle that finger with a ring, as though to honour it with a crown.