Editing Engagement ring (section)

===Middle Ages===
The mid-7th century [[Visigothic Code]] required "that when the ceremony of betrothal has been performed ... and the ring shall have been given or accepted as a pledge, although nothing may have been committed to writing, the promise shall, under no circumstances, be broken."<ref name="Scott1910">{{cite book|last=Scott|first=Samuel Parsons|author-link=Samuel Parsons Scott|title=Forum Judicum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nYNGpUUxVtEC&pg=PA91|access-date=3 November 2013|year=1910|publisher=Wm. S. Hein Publishing|isbn=978-0-8377-1233-8|page=77}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg3-1.htm| title = The Visigothic Code: (Forum judicum) - Book III: Concerning Marriage - Title I: Concerning Nuptial Contracts}}</ref>

In 860 AD, [[Pope Nicholas I]] wrote a letter to [[Boris I of Bulgaria]] in reply to questions regarding differences between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox practices. Pope Nicholas describes how in the Western church the man gives his betrothed an engagement ring.<ref name="Scott1980">{{cite book|author=Stephen N. Scott|title=The Replies of Pope Nicholas I to the Inquiries of the Bulgarians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2wkZNAAACAAJ|year=1980}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/866nicholas-bulgar.asp| title = The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866 (Letter 99) Chapter 3}}</ref><ref name="Bingham1846">{{cite book|author=Joseph Bingham|title=Origines Ecclesiasticæ: The Antiquities of the Christian Church : with Two Sermons and Two Letters on the Nature and Necessity of Absolution|url=https://archive.org/details/originesecclesi06binggoog|year=1846|publisher=H. G. Bohn|page=[https://archive.org/details/originesecclesi06binggoog/page/n549 1215]|quote=Apud nostrates post sponsalia qua futurarum nuptiarum sunt promissio foedera quaeque consensu eorum qui haec contrahunt et eorum in quorum potestate sunt celebrantur. Postquam arris sponsam sibi sponsua per digitum fidei annulo insignitum desponderit...}}</ref> At the [[Fourth Council of the Lateran]] in 1215, convoked by [[Pope Innocent III]], the [[banns of marriage]] was instituted, prohibiting clandestine marriages and requiring that marriages be made public in advance.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/lateran4.htm#50| title = Fourth Lateran Council (1215) Constitution 51. Clandestine marriages forbidden| access-date = 2013-11-05| archive-date = 2016-08-20| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160820183422/http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/lateran4.htm#50| url-status = dead}}</ref> Some{{who|date=December 2014}} legal scholars have seen in this a parallel with the engagement-ring tradition described by Pope Nicholas I.{{citation needed|date=December 2014}}