File:Medieval gold ring brooch with clasped hands and inscription. (FindID 125778).jpg

English: Gold annular brooch with circular frame, D-shaped in cross-section - rounded on the reverse and flattened on the front. The frame has a constriction to take the cast gold pin, which is also D-shaped in cross-section but flat on the reverse. The pin has a collar at the junction of shaft and loop which is also flat on the reverse, but on the sides and front is notched to give a beaded effect. There is a transverse groove on the upper surface of the pin c.1.5mm (i.e. the width of the frame) from the tip. A groove is worn on the upper surface of the frame to take the pin.

If the pin constriction is held at 12 o'clock, at 3 o'clock there is a pair of clasped hands protruding from the edge. The hands are large and well modelled with long thumbs. The protruding hands are slightly open and may have originally held a pearl or stone setting; they are now filled with soil.

There is an inscription on the front of the frame, which should be read going clockwise from the pin constriction. At first sight it appears to be garbled and to read IOVI:IVILVOIONLI in poorly executed seriffed capitals.

Malcolm Jones has seen an image of the brooch, however, and suggests that the final four letters clearly reading ONLI (only) would be unusual in a random set of letters. If the first I were intended as an L, and the strokes that make up the IV were meant to be united to form a W, and the V were a poorly executed Y, it would read LOV I : WIL YOI ONLI. This can be plausibly reconstructed (mistakes corrected and spellings modernised) as "Love, I will you only", where 'will' has its earlier meaning 'want'. The stops written here as a colon are in fact three dots in a vertical line.

Length 20.30mm, width (diameter) 12.86mm, thickness across ring 1.02mm, thickness across pin hinge 2.55mm, thickness across hands 4.33mm, width of hands (knuckle-knuckle) 3.44mm, weight 1.23g.

The Treasure Annual Report 2000 publishes a similar ring, p75, no.137, although silver and without an inscription, and notes that "More de-luxe versions of this type of brooch [such as this one, in gold] may have held a pearl within the clasped hands". It cites two other examples in the Victoria & Albert Museum published in Lightbown 'Medieval European Jewellery (1978, London) cat nos 13 & 14, and another in the Treasure Annual Report 1998-9, no.155. A silver clasped-hands brooch from Sutton cum Lound, Notts is on the PAS database no. DENO-1B4283, Treasure reference number 2005 T105.