Chris And Penny Become Engaged! (Page Six)
The concept
of an engagement period may have begun in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran
Council, headed by Pope Innocent III, which decreed that "marriages are
to be ... announced publicly in the churches by the priests during a
suitable and fixed time, so that if legitimate impediments exist, they
may be made known." Such a formal church announcement of the intent to
marry is known as banns. In some jurisdictions, reading the banns may be
part of one type of legal marriage.
The modern Western form of the practice of giving or exchanging engagement rings is traditionally thought to have begun in 1477 when Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, gave Mary of Burgundy a diamond ring as an engagement present.
In the United States, United Kingdom & Ireland, Canada, Australia, and many other countries, an engagement ring is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand. This tradition is thought to be from the Romans, who believed this finger to be the beginning of the vena amoris ("vein of love"), the vein that leads to the heart.
Penny's Home In Phoenix
Chris & Penny
