The Ring on the Little Finger (Andreas Capellanus and Medieval Chiromancy)

In a well-known passage from the treatiseOn Love (De amore) written sometime between the late twelfth and earlythirteenth century, the still mysteriousauthor known as Andreas Capellanus, orAndré, le chapelain, considers on whichhand and which finger a ring presented byone’s lover should be worn. This article shows that thepassage from Andreas Capellanus’s Deamore seems to reflect the influence ofchiromantic theory. The presence of thisallusion to the ‘modern’ science of chiromancyis a further clue to theperceived Aristotelian naturalism, the‘vanitates’ and ‘insaniae falsae’ which, inthe eyes of Étienne Tempier, bishop ofParis, made the content of Andreas Capellanus’sDe amore unacceptable and which,it has been claimed, contributed to theParisian condemnations of 1277.