This ring would have been used as a signet. Personal seals (secreta) provided an essential legal safeguard and were used to witness documents such as wills, deeds of gift, loans and commercial documents, personal letters and land indentures. A letter from Lord Berengario in Verona in 906 underscores the importance of the signet: ‘So that this may be more truly believed and more faithfully observed, we order this to be sealed with our ring, confirming it with our own hand’.

Signets could be engraved with a coat of arms for those entitled to bear them, with a personal device or sign or as this ring, with an initial letter. The letter 'W', which probably related to the first initial of the ring's owner was combined with a Tau cross and the letters IHS. The Tau cross, possibly derived from the Egyptian ankh, is the symbol of St Anthony Abbot, an Egyptian hermit and swineherd of the third century AD. The Tau cross is said to represent the crutch which he used to control his herd. The resemblance of the Tau to a cross led to it being ascribed a mystical significance. St Anthony was believed to cure ergotism, or St Anthony's fire, and to protect the faithful against pestilence and poisoning. He was the patron saint of the poor and sick and of knights, butchers and brushmakers. A ring bearing the symbol of St Anthony would confer the protection of the saint on the wearer. The letters IHS represent the first letters of the name of Christ in Greek and were also interpreted as 'Iesus Hominum Salvator' - Jesus, Savour of Humanity. The inscription was believed to offer protection to the wearer.

This ring forms part of a collection of over 600 rings and engraved gems from the collection of Edmund Waterton (1830-81). Waterton was one of the foremost ring collectors of the nineteenth century and was the author of several articles on rings, a book on English devotion to the Virgin Mary and an unfinished catalogue of his collection (the manuscript is now the National Art Library). Waterton was noted for his extravagance and financial troubles caused him to place his collection in pawn with the London jeweller Robert Phillips. When he was unable to repay the loan, Phillips offered to sell the collection to the Museum and it was acquired in 1871. A small group of rings which Waterton had held back were acquired in 1899.