tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85906072024-03-07T15:29:42.169-08:00PaternostersA journal about historical rosaries, paternosters and other forms of prayer beads, focusing on those in use before 1600AD.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comBlogger216125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-24987383884627353622010-12-23T13:38:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:11.393-08:00A blessed ChristmasI haven't been posting much this year, but I can't let Christmas go by without a Christmas card. Especially since I've discovered the painter Gerard David (1460?-1523), who created a number of wonderful pictures that just happen to have paternosters or rosaries in them.<br /><br />Here is yet another picture of the Virgin Mary, the Infant Jesus and a string of paternoster or rosary beads. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/5286562564/" title="GDavid-Castagnino, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5287/5286562564_f3d3aa53de.jpg" width="290" alt="GDavid-Castagnino" /></a><br /><br />In this case, we can't tell as much about the beads as I would like because the only photo of this I could find online is a small one from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Carlos_Castagnino_Municipal_Museum_of_Art">Museo Castagnino</a> in Mar del Plata, Argentina, where <a href="http://www.museocastagnino.org.ar/coleccion/david.html">the painting</a> resides. The Museo Castagnino is a city museum named for local painter Juan Carlos Castagnino, housed in a delightfully turreted Art Nouveau mansion in what looks like the middle of downtown.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/5285963485/" title="museocastagnino, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5202/5285963485_eaa60c28a1.jpg" width=290" alt="museocastagnino" /></a><br /><br />Here, as often elsewhere, the Virgin is dressed in a blue gown and red mantle. Most of what we see is the red mantle, which might explain why the beads shown are not painted in red, the color most often seen in such portraits of the Virgin with beads. <br /><br />I can't tell from the painting whether we are looking at a long loop of beads with a tassel at the bottom, or whether this is a straight string with two tassels that just happen to be lying right next to each other. Either is interesting, but I would be happy if it was the latter, since it would support my theory that a long straight string is a possible, though not common, type of paternoster for women (assuming that the beads here are supposed to belong to the Virgin, not the Infant). <br /><br />I can count approximately 32 beads in what we can see here, and the space hidden behind the Infant's hand and leg (and darling little toes) has room for about another 20 or so. I would guess this is intended to represent a string of 50 Aves and five Pater beads, one of which is visible just above the tassel(s) at the bottom.<br /><br />The Ave beads seem to be a sort of gold color, but what I can see of the highlights and interior details (which is not much) suggest that they may be transparent, perhaps representing amber. I've seen another painting of the Virgin and Child with amber-like beads in the <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/01/beads-in-isenheim-altarpiece.html">Isenheim altarpiece</a>.<br /><br />The Pater beads occur after every 10th Ave, as expected. They are more or less light-gray smudges in this image if you look at it up close, but I would guess that they might be intended as silver.<br /><br />The Virgin and Child with beads seems to be a classic theme, and I always find it delightful, however anachronistic it is. It's an image -- like the images of the Virgin "in humility" that show her sitting on the ground -- that encouraged people, in the time when it was painted, to think of Mary and the Infant as human, warm and accessible, rather than majestic and distant. And Christmas is a celebration of exactly that: of a Christ as human as we are.<br /><br />May peace be on all of us, and on this flawed but still beautiful world. Merry Christmas.<br /><br />Previous Christmas posts:<br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/12/blessed-christmas-to-all.html">Christmas 2005</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-blessings.html">Christmas 2006</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/12/blessed-christmas.html">Christmas 2007</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-blessings.html">Christmas 2008</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-blessings.html">Christmas 2009</a>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-7396319580766510212010-08-08T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.225-08:00Zooming at the PradoThis article is a love letter to the Prado. <br /><br />More and more museums are putting large parts of their collections online. This is especially helpful for the things I research, because there are so few surviving rosaries from before 1700 or so that most museums have only one or two examples, if any. The other major source of information museums have on historical rosary beads is period drawings and paintings, so I'm very grateful to be able to see more of what they've got.<br /><br />I am especially pleased when the museum has spent the additional money to have their online collection well indexed. Indexing is an often invisible feature that is extremely helpful to scholars. Nothing is more frustrating than to sit in front of a museum's Search page trying one term after another -- the artist's name, his nicknames in various languages, the name of the person in the portrait -- in search of a painting that you KNOW the museum must have. I've mentioned the importance of good indexing before when I wrote about the photo archives at <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/08/more-photos-realonline.html">REALonline</a> -- which are pretty well indexed -- and at <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/03/bildindexde.html">Bildindex.de</a>, which are definitely NOT.<br /><br />When I discover a new online collection, the first thing I do is a search on "rosary," and while that probably doesn't retrieve everything I would want to see, it's especially gratifying when it turns up things I hadn't seen and was not expecting. A couple of references in the background reading I was doing about <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/05/la-divina-pastora-virgin-mary-as.html">La Divina Pastora</a> sent me to the <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es">Museo Nacional del Prado</a> in Madrid, and especially to the <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/">online photo gallery</a>.<br /><br />The last time I looked at the Prado site, there were very few paintings online, and the views were small. I can't see much in a 300-pixel-wide image. Rosary beads by their nature tend to be small compared to the people in the painting, and at that size, even if someone is holding beads, I can barely see that they exist. I often can't even count how many beads are showing, and it's next to impossible to see how the painter or artist has depicted the beads -- shape, highlights, surface decoration, how they are strung and other details.<br /><br />Now the Prado has Zoom. For about 1,000 items in their collection, you can now not only see a good image of the entire painting, you can zoom in on details. In portraits especially, I can often zoom in close enough to practically count the person's eyelashes. More relevant to this discussion, I can see every brush stroke that went into the depiction of beads that are being worn or held by someone in the painting.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746256289/" title="Federico Gonzaga, © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4746256289_d340906120.jpg" width="290" alt="Federico Gonzaga, © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />For instance, there are two portraits that I've mentioned elsewhere -- that of <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/federico-gonzaga-i-duke-of-mantua/">Federico Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua</a>, shown above, and which I referred to <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/01/ring-around-collar.html">here</a> (he's wearing a rosary around his neck) and the image of <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/felipe-ii-7/">Philip II</a> holding a rosary (discussed <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/11/beads-from-inventory-of-philip-ii.html">here</a> and shown below).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746897354/" title="Philip II of Spain, © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4122/4746897354_2e4d63f872.jpg" width="290" alt="Philip II of Spain, © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />Not only can I zoom in on the beads in both these portraits, the overall images of these paintings are much better than the reproductions I'd seen previously. Both are rather dark paintings, and reproductions of them tend to turn both the clothing and the backgrounds black. The museum's online images have much better contrast: the backgrounds appear as subtly shaded browns and grays, and you can see that Mr. Gonzaga's doublet is actually a very nice shade of dark blue. (Philip, of course, is still wearing black, as he nearly always does.)<br /><br />Here's how it works. When you go to a painting's main page in the Prado online gallery, you see a small image, a list of relevant facts about it (not always complete), and a few paragraphs of discussion. There's usually a bit of discussion about the subject of the painting, some basic information about the painter, and a short outline of the history of this particular painting. At present, most of the pages I've seen have the painting's title, reference number, artist's name, date, and measurements, and a note whether it's currently on display. Missing in some cases are information in the data fields for technique and support (f.ex. oils on canvas), school of artists and the painting's theme. I'm glad they didn't wait to post these images until all that was filled in, though, as it's usually information available elsewhere.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4793306125/" title="Screenshot, © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4793306125_4cd3d87e32.jpg" width="290" alt="Screenshot, © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />Below each painting are two icons. Clicking on either one takes you to a larger image with the same icons. The magnifying glass icon on the right is for "Zoom 2." <br /><br /><center><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4793939154_5e8797c127_o.gif" width="44" height="50" alt="Zoom 2 icon on Museo del Prado website, © Museo del Prado" /></center><br /><br />If you click on this icon, it takes you to a screen with a scale at the bottom: grab the little dark button on the scale and slide it to the right to zoom in on details. Hovering over the painting turns the cursor to a pointing finger, which you can use to move the painting up, down and sideways to center the detail you're looking for. Click on your browser's Back button to get out of this zoom mode.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746256537/" title="Zoom 2 Magnifier on Museo del Prado website, © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4746256537_e446982771.jpg" width="290" alt="Zoom 2 Magnifier on Museo del Prado website, © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />The rectangular icon below the painting on the left is for "Zoom 1." If you click on this icon, then click on the painting itself, you get a new window with an "alta resolucion" (high resolution) image of the entire painting. I find this absolutely amazing, because these images are very large, 1 megabyte or more, equivalent to the highest resolution you can see in Zoom 2. These images are easily downloaded for personal research purposes. (It's important to read the legal information linked from the bottom of the page to see what you can and cannot do with these images.)<br /><br /><center><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4140/4793939192_75b0550b32_o.gif" width="60" height="45" alt="Zoom 1 icon on Museo del Prado website, © Museo del Prado" /></center><br /><br />No system is perfect, and I did find that for some paintings the medium setting is about as far as you can go in magnifying a painting to see details well. Beyond that you run across the limitations of the original photo that was taken of the painting, as with this detail, where you can easily see the "noise" generated by compressing a large image to fit into a Web-compatible format.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746257841/" title="Maximum magnification, Philip II of Spain, © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/4746257841_b055fee0e5.jpg" width="290" alt="Maximum magnification, Philip II of Spain, © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />So what can I see about these rosary beads that I couldn't see before?<br /><br />Federico Gonzaga's beads were very difficult to see against the dark background and his dark doublet. Now I can see them clearly enough to count them, to make some educated guesses about the materials they are made of, and to see the arrangement of beads and cross in the center front. <br /><br />I think the Ave beads here are probably supposed to be jet: they are round, black, have a highlight indicating they are smooth and polished, but don't look at all transparent. They are arranged in nice groups of ten. Judging by how many we can see and how many are probably concealed behind Mr. Gonzaga's head, there are probably five decades. Comparing them with the width of his fingers, they look to be about 10 to 12mm in diameter.<br /><br />The Pater beads are probably gold (most likely gilded silver), round, and only a little larger than the Ave beads -- which is interesting: Paters are often bigger than this, relative to the Aves. But the difference in material would no doubt be enough that you could easily tell them from the Aves by feel, especially since jet is warm to the touch and metal is not. Not much detail is visible; looking at the shape and placement of the highlights, I'd guess they are probably hollow with a horizontal seam and may be fluted.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746256437/" title="Detail, Federico Gonzaga, © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4746256437_8d910f9b40.jpg" width="290" alt="Detail, Federico Gonzaga, © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />Also interesting is the arrangement of beads at center front where the loop joins. Unusually for 1529, there are three extra beads below the joining of the loop, followed by another gold Pater bead, and suspended from the end of this short chain of beads is something that appears to be a cross. Not a lot of detail is visible, but it looks like a plain, dark colored Latin cross, possibly jet, about the length of two Ave beads. Above the short chain you can see two Pater beads side by side, one belonging to the decade of Ave beads on each side. In 19th and 20th century rosaries both of these Paters are generally replaced by a flat medal.<br /><br />Philip II's beads are more nondescript, but we can get a much better view of their size and color. I would guess these are supposed to be gold: they're the right color, although the highlights make them look somewhat dull-surfaced rather than shiny as I'd expect. They are also a little browner in color than the Golden Fleece Philip is wearing around his neck, so they might in fact be something other than gold, though I can't think of anything else quite that color. They aren't transparent enough or yellow-orange enough to be amber. These are bigger than Mr. Gonzaga's beads, perhaps in the 16mm to 18mm range. All we see in this case is plain round beads with no visible Paters or ornaments, and we can't see enough of the string to tell how they are put together.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4793939294/" title="Detail, Philip II of Spain, © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/4793939294_d99b45a05c.jpg" width="290" alt="Detail, Philip II of Spain, © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />I'm very thankful to the Prado, the National Gallery in London, and other museums that now have excellent Zoom features. Their generosity in sharing these images is extremely helpful for anyone trying to do research who is not able to go see everything in person -- much as I'd like to!Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-44360770198131507232010-08-01T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:11.719-08:00Rosary or not: gauds and groups<h2>part 4 of a series</h2><br />As I mentioned <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/02/rosary-or-not-people-factor.html">earlier</a>, the first essential of doing research on rosaries and paternosters is to be able to identify paternoster beads when we see them. Besides the "people clues" — who is wearing or holding the beads and how — some clues come from the beads themselves. <br /><br />I've been looking at some portraits of women with beads around the neck that I'm pretty sure are decorative necklaces and not rosaries. But then I ran across the painting below. It's called "The Magdalen Weeping," and was painted about 1525 in the Workshop of the "Master of the Magdalen Legend." It's now in the National Gallery, London.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4841290202/" title="Magdalen Weeping, by the Master of the Magdalen Legend. © National Gallery, London"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/4841290202_877e475135.jpg" width="290" alt="Magdalen Weeping, by the Master of the Magdalen Legend. © National Gallery, London"></a><br /><br /><i>(I must digress here to praise the National Gallery for their new website, with its quite remarkable zoom viewer. A few years ago all they had on the site was one small image of each painting. The zoom viewer is a major improvement, and a boon to anyone who needs to see small details without having to cross a large ocean.)</i><br /><br />Here's a closeup. As always, click on the picture for a larger view:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4841290326/" title="Magdalen Weeping, by the Master of the Magdalen Legend. © National Gallery, London"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4133/4841290326_bccede6fe6.jpg" width="290" alt="Magdalen Weeping, by the Master of the Magdalen Legend. © National Gallery, London" /></a><br /><br />A very good clue that something is a rosary is the presence of gauds (marker beads) at regular intervals on a single string of beads, with smaller beads between. The painter may or may not reproduce exactly how many beads are in each interval, but my sense is that the presence of larger, contrasting colored beads like this is probably intended as a signal that this element of the painting represents a rosary. So far, I have not seen anything that <i>couldn't</i> be a rosary that has this feature. <br /><br />An additional clue in Saint Mary Magdalen's necklace is that it has a cross hanging from it. This by itself isn't definitive: medieval necklaces can also have crosses. And if you've been reading this blog for awhile, you will have seen that medieval and Renaissance rosaries didn't always have crosses, by any means: they could end with a medal, a tassel, or just be a continuous loop with no defined end point. But coupled with the gauds, this makes me even more inclined to think that this is a rosary.<br /><br />In many paintings we can see enough of the beads to tell that they are definitely in groups of ten. While there were probably other devotional practices that used beads in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the "decade" style of rosary devotion was overwhelmingly the most popular and easily recognized. This is an additional factor reinforcing the message that this is intended to signify a rosary, and perhaps a clue that the artist was attempting to paint literally what he saw.<br /><br />Interestingly, the bead numbers are less than clear in the Magdalen painting. If you look closely at the detail, the beads toward the back of her neck become rather vague. There <b><i>might</i></b> be another clear gaud (these are probably intended to be rock crystal) on the lower of the two strands after the tenth bead (counting backward from the gaud close to the cross) but the painting is rather muddled in this area.<br /><br />I've also seen a number of paintings where the beads are in groups of <b><i>approximately</i></b> ten — nine or eleven are fairly common, and sometimes eight or twelve. If several groups are visible, they will very often have different numbers. This leads me to think that the artist is being less than perfectly literal, but that a rosary is probably still the intended meaning.<br /><br />It becomes more problematic when the beads are in regular groups of less than ten. My working hypothesis is that if there are gauds at regular intervals, a rosary is probably the intended meaning. But there are cases where I'm not sure what to think. For instance, there is this: a detail from a portrait of about 1585 of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia by the workshop of Alonso de Sánchez Coello. The Infanta is pictured with her dwarf, Magdalena Ruiz, who is wearing beads around her neck. <i>(This portrait is in the Museo del Prado, Madrid — which has another very nice zoom viewer on their website.)</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4847261926/" title="Magdalena Ruiz, detail from a portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia by the workshop of Alonso Sanchez Coello, ca. 1585. © Museo del Prado"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/4847261926_8525951634.jpg" width="290" height="500" alt="Magdalena Ruiz, detail from a portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia by the workshop of Alonso Sanchez Coello, ca. 1585. © Museo del Prado" /></a><br /><br />The beads are in regular groupings, but the groups are only three beads. There is a cross hanging from the beads. Rosary or not? I've debated about this one. I'm inclined to think it is: the regular groups with gauds and the cross strongly suggest it — especially since the cross is not hanging neatly in the bottom center as I think it would if this was a decorative necklace with a cross pendant. This has more the air of a familiar string of beads flung casually around Magdalena's neck because she has her hands full (with a couple of playful monkeys). The cross also looks like a type common to rosaries: compare the sketches in the Book of Guaman Poma.<br /><br />My working hypothesis is that groups of "known" numbers are a clue that something <b><i>is</i></b> a rosary, but other groupings — depending on what other clues are present — are not necessarily a signal that this is <b><i>not</i></b> a rosary. No doubt this is my bias showing. I study rosaries, so I may be inclined to see them everywhere. But I would rather think that my experience with the styles and appearance of medieval and Renaissance rosaries may be leading me to point out rosaries in paintings where their significance has previously been missed.<br /><br /><h2>Previous posts in this series:</h2><br />Part 1: <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/08/rosary-or-not.html">Rosary or not?</a><br />Part 2: <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/08/from-spanish-galleon.html">From a Spanish galleon</a><br />Par 3: <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/02/rosary-or-not-people-factor.html">Rosary or not: the people factor</a>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-79544444825174882572010-07-26T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.314-08:00Oxolyte<h2>WALL ROSARIES, PART IV</h2><br />In the<a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/06/off-wall.html"> last article</a>, I showed a lot of pictures of a relatively common type of wall rosary that is made of some sort of ivory-colored material. Until recently I hadn't ever seen one of these in person, and on eBay they are described in wildly varying terminology, so I deduced that most of the people putting these up for sale have no idea what they're made of either.<br /><br />A frequent guess is bone or ivory. But bone and ivory both have a "grain" of faint vertical stripes -- it's clearer in bone than in ivory. This doesn't, even when a fairly large smooth surface is exposed.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4832905195/" title="white-closeup by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/4832905195_00cc713fe0.jpg" width="290" alt="white-closeup" /></a><br /><br />When you actually have it in your hand, this material is also harder and much heavier than bone. A sharp knife doesn't scratch it. On the Mohs scale of mineral hardness (where talc is 1 and a diamond is 10), bone or ivory has a hardness of about 3 to 5, while a steel knife is about 6, so the fact that a knife won't scratch it demonstrates that this material isn't likely to be bone or ivory.<br /><br />Also, if this material were bone, that would be detectable by a simple burn test. (I bought a broken rosary of this type for tests, so I wouldn't feel bad about ruining a bead or two.) When held to a flame, bone will scorch, but it usually doesn't show a flame -- or if it does, when you remove it from the heat source the flame goes out by itself. The smell of burning bone is also quite distinctive: it's the smell of a dentist's office where someone has been drilling teeth. Bone scorches under the surface as well as on it -- if you rub off the black part, it's brown underneath.<br /><br />This rosary material, on the other hand, not only shows a flame, it keeps on burning after you remove it from the heat -- you have to actively extinguish it. The surface turns black, and when it flakes off, the part just underneath the surface is completely unscorched, but soft like taffy. And it gives off a strong acrid smell like burning plastic. (This is a hint.)<br /><br />This material is indeed at least partly plastic -- or "resin," as plastic is often politely called -- but why is it so heavy? A bit of Internet research reveals that some of these rosaries are labeled as being made from "Oxolyte." This turns out to be the key. <br /><br />There is, as I discovered, a whole class of modern compounds that consist of stone dust with some sort of plastic (resin) binder. Oxolyte is the trademarked name for a particular compound that includes marble dust. There are other variations, which may use marble, limestone or alabaster dust (rarely quartz) as their stone component. These may be called bonded or cultured marble, sculptstone, thermostone, alabasterite or hydrostone. Most of them are from 75% to as much as 90% stone, which is why they are so heavy and hard. They are used for all sorts of ornamental plaques, statues, picture frames, stepping stones and other ornaments, especially for outdoor use since they are fairly weather-resistant. [1]<br /><br />These materials can be carved, but their big advantage is that they can be cast in molds, which means a lot of copies of the same thing can be turned out very quickly. Well-made objects that have been cast are often touched up and smoothed, so there may or may not be visible "mold marks" that show where the joints of the mold were. But there's one sign that these objects were indeed cast in molds that is much harder to eradicate -- and the makers often don't bother, especially on surfaces not intended to be seen. Here's the back of the cross of the rosary I bought, and a closeup of the top of one of the beads:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4833514424/" title="cross-back by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/4833514424_74043d00ba.jpg" width="290" alt="cross-back" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4833514326/" title="bead-faults by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4149/4833514326_7223c4fd52.jpg" width="290" alt="bead-faults" /></a><br /><br />See those round depressions, shaped like half of a small sphere?<br /><br />Bubbles. From when the casting material didn't completely fill the mold.<br /><br />---------------------------<br /><br />[1] Many thanks to <a href="http://www.cst.cmich.edu/USERS/DIETR1RV/stones/index.htm">R.V. Dietrich</a>, Professor Emeritus, Central Michigan University for this information.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-64196696100187005942010-07-18T12:00:00.001-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.046-08:00More off the wall<h2>WALL ROSARIES, PART III</h2><br />As I mentioned in <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/06/off-wall.html">Part I</a>, I see a lot of wall rosaries for sale that are made of some sort of ivory-colored (sometimes white, gray or yellowish) material.*<br /><br />This type of wall rosary is pretty readily recognizable. About three-quarters of the examples of this type I see look like this one:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4804034860/" title="fullview "><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4099/4804034860_a3ff4f197d.jpg" width="290" alt="fullview" /></a><br /><br />These rosaries are invariably constructed chain-style with metal links through each bead. The beads are more or less inverted-pyramid shape, with images on four sides. Often the designs on the examples I see are blurry; sometimes they're hard to identify -- I have the feeling they may not have been all that well made in the first place. But when I can tell what they are, the common ones on the rosaries with pyramid-shaped beads are the face of Christ and the face of Mary. Many if not all of them have Mary on two opposite sides and Christ on the other two. On other variations of this type of rosary (discussed below) I've seen similar faces, plus images of visions of Mary (standing on something with kneeling children in front), of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of St. Anthony, and of (I think) Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The designs are "antiqued" with brown or black pigment to bring out the detail.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4804034072/" title="pyramid-beads"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4804034072_d750c27edd.jpg" width="290" alt="pyramid-beads" /></a><br /><br />I will say again that there are a <b><i>whole lot</i></b> of these out there. These rosaries are still being made and sold new, either imported by Catholic gift shops or directly from Italian sources like <a href="http://romegiftshop.com">RomeGiftShop.com</a> (<a href="http://wallrosaries.com">wallrosaries.com</a> gets you there too). And at any given moment there are likely to be two or three of these rosaries for sale on eBay. But just as with other wall rosaries, people who run into one of these have almost always never seen one before and have no idea what they are.<br /><br />Since these are assembled from parts, it's not surprising to see some mixing and matching with different styles of central medallions and crucifixes. The most common type of crucifix is this one:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4803402311/" title="common-cross"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4803402311_00bdb04c2a.jpg" width="229" height="500" alt="common-cross" /></a><br /><br />(See the engraved asterisks all over the background of this? If you're old enough, you may remember this motif as a very popular one in early 1960s "modern" decor.)<br /><br />Other styles I've also seen:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4804034760/" title="alt-cross"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4804034760_25455a68be.jpg" width="142" alt="alt-cross" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4804033806/" title="twig-cross by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4804033806_b2d150a163.jpg" width="142" alt="twig-cross" /></a><br /><br />The commonest center element is this one, although I've seen a number of different plaques and figures:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4717700947/" title="oxolyte by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4717700947_f0b5004756.jpg" width="290" alt="oxolyte" /></a><br /><br />But I won't bore you with every possible variation.<br /><br />I've seen just a few photos of another version, with beads that are flattened on two sides. This example is a rosary specifically in memory of Pope John XXIII. Here's the centerpiece:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4803401987/" title="john-23"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/4803401987_f90eec5875.jpg" width="290" alt="john-23" /></a><br /><br />It's not a very good photo. I have an even less good image of the faces of these beads -- which have what is clearly John XXIII's face on the flat sides, as you can tell by comparing them to the center medallion, although the beads in the photo are very worn. The beads also have designs molded onto their edges, which are hard to see and identify.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4803402057/" title="john-23-beads"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4803402057_6798e55f2b.jpg" width="290" alt="john-23-beads" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4804034170/" title="edge-moldings"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4094/4804034170_116a8cdbb8.jpg" width="290" alt="edge-moldings" /></a><br /><br />I suspect, though I don't know for sure, that rosaries of this type may also have been made to commemorate Pope Pius XII -- I have seen one privately owned example that seems to have a different face on it than the John XXIII one, but is otherwise extremely similar. The face on that one is a close match for the profiles I've seen of Pius XII (pope 1939-1958), which would make sense, since these rosaries seem to have been most popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s.<br /><br />I'm actually re-considering my previous idea that wall rosaries were seldom used for prayer, because the images on these seem so often to be worn looking. Either they were used and handled a lot, or perhaps the material is not very durable. This also makes me think that perhaps some of these rosaries were displayed draped tastefully over tables or other furniture where they were touched more frequently, rather than hung on walls. If anyone has better photos of beads like this, or more information, I'd love to hear about it.<br /><br />----------------------------------------------<br />*<i>(I was going to be all mean and make you wait for my conclusion about what these are -- and in the next article I'll tell you about the common wrong guesses. But for now, I will offer the key words: alabasterite or oxolyte. Full story next time.)</i>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-73318788792805326232010-07-11T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.195-08:00Wood wall rosaries<h2>wall rosaries, part II</h2><br />Probably the most common material for modern <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/06/off-wall.html">wall rosaries</a> is wood. It's quite a practical choice, since it's light in weight, so it's easy to make a rosary with big impressive-looking beads that doesn't require wall anchors or other heavy hardware if you actually want to hang it on a wall.<br /><br />As I mentioned in the <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/06/off-wall.html">first of this series</a>, most wall rosaries seem to be configured like the standard modern rosary: five decades with marker beads, plus a short string of a marker, three smaller beads and another marker above the cross at the end. But there are quite a number of different styles of beads.<br /><br />First, I did find a couple of photos that show ways in which such a "wall rosary" can be hung. Some of them actually come with a wooden hanger, like this one:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4784054496/" title="wall rosary with hanger"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4784054496_bc1a5a23da.jpg" width="290" alt="hanger"></a><br /><br />This other picture from a recent eBay auction amuses me, because it illustrates the rather makeshift way I think some wall rosaries may be displayed. On the other hand, perhaps it was just arranged this way to be at convenient photo height.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783428367/" title="wall rosary draped over a mirror and lampshade"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4783428367_abcac690df.jpg" width="290" alt="lampshade"></a><br /><br />The simplest type of wall rosary has plain round beads. These unvarnished beads are particularly nice ones. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783420991/" title="plain round beads"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4099/4783420991_52bcbb1dd9.jpg" width="290" alt="plainround"></a><br /><br />Plain round beads may also be varnished. The lighter colored ones here are olive wood from the Holy Land. This particular style has beads that aren't as big as the others pictured; they're only about half an inch in diameter. It seems to be much easier to get olive wood beads from the Holy Land now than it was a few years ago when I was looking for them: admittedly it's hard to run any business during a state of active war.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4784060342/" title="round beads of olive wood"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4784060342_422305a346.jpg" width="290" alt="oliveround"></a><br /><br />I also see a lot of round beads that are cut lengthwise to the wood grain and finished to bring out the striped appearance of the grain.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4784062136/" title="striped wood beads"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4784062136_2a85dabaa8.jpg" width="290" alt="striped-round"></a><br /><br />There's a particular type of wood-bead wall rosary that seems to be especially popular in South America: it has a distinctively shaped cross. The wood here looks to me rather like palm wood. (As always, click on the photos to get a larger view.)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783427423/" title="Quito-style wood beads"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4783427423_639f1ba0d7.jpg" width="290" alt="Quito"></a><br /><br />I used to see more wooden wall rosaries like this next one, whose beads appear to be cut from tree branches. These are out of fashion now and harder to find -- the usual wall-rosary suppliers seem to have discontinued them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783427867/" title="segments from wooden branches"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4783427867_a08680c301.jpg" width="290" alt="twiggy"></a><br /><br />Oval beads are found as well as round ones, as in this next example. These often have particularly long, thin crucifixes on them. They look rather elegant and streamlined.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783429053/" title="oval wood beads"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/4783429053_ec50a907f7.jpg" width="290" alt="ovals"></a><br /><br />I've also seen a style that has rectangular, faceted beads, often with a very dark finish. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4784062722/" title="faceted wood beads"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4784062722_a4cdb2c5ff.jpg" width="290" alt="faceted"></a><br /><br />By far the most common and interesting type of wall rosary is one with decorated beads. The ones below all belong to a common "family" of decoration, where the primary motif is circles. You also see this style of decoration in much smaller rosary beads.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783429753/" title="beads with simple carved circles"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4097/4783429753_721a824c18.jpg" width="290" alt="targets"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4784063946/" title="beads with simple rose-engine carving"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4784063946_c5583fed68.jpg" width="290" alt="eye-rounds"></a><br /><br />I find these beads interesting because they are all decorated using basically the same method. They are often listed as being "hand carved," but this is only partially true. I am reasonably sure that what's being used to decorate them is a small machine called a "rose engine," which was first invented in Germany in the early 1500s. When Holbein was sent to paint a miniature of Anne of Cleves in 1539, a rose-turned case was made to house the picture. <br /><br />As one of my correspondents on the Paternosters mailing list explained, "These large round early 20th C wooden beads are formed into spheres on a lathe, and then the overlapping circle-dot (or Eye) designs are done using a revolving cutter, against which the beads are held by hand and cut section by section. The result somewhat resembles the pattern of a rosebud. The circles are often spaced out in a slightly random, hit-and-miss sort of way."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4784063326/" title="beads with overlapping circles"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4116/4784063326_9eb5b0bf8f.jpg" width="290" alt="overlaps"></a><br />She adds, "This technique of carving and decorating beads I always associate with Christian rosaries, although in fact there are lots of wooden beads and some bone like this that also were made in China in around the 1900’s-1920s, and they weren't associated with crucifixes. It might be interesting to discover whether the stuff made in China was a result of Christian missionary activity or not. Or whether perhaps the method of carving came to Europe from China." <br /><br />(By the way, here is a Google Books link to a <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=f5kAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA367&lpg=PA367&dq=%22rose+turning%22+engine&source=bl&ots=jF9uBhY5T-&sig=N5S-LvZt9xxjr-WqTh6rx3TsR_A&hl=en&ei=yAs6TOiPOsGC8gasrPGnBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=%22rose%20turning%22%20engine&f=false">description of a rose-turning engine</a> from an 1853 edition of the Mechanic's Magazine. I also found an online <a href="http://www.ornamentalturning.co.uk/gallery.htm"> gallery</a> of some spectacular ornamental turnings, some of which were done with a rose engine. A Google search on <b>"rose turning"+engine</b> will get you a few more examples, although disappointingly few are illustrated.)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783430285/" title="wall rosary with rose-engine relief carving"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4783430285_21b8899515.jpg" width="290" alt="rose-whole"></a><br /><br />Wall rosaries with rose-turned carved wooden beads seem actually to be the single most common type of wooden wall rosary you'll find on eBay and similar sites. I suspect this is because in the late 19th and early 20th century they were mass-produced in vast quantities as souvenirs for just about every notable pilgrimage site connected with the Virgin Mary. In the USA, the most common are those coming from St. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec, but I've also seen examples from Lourdes, from Buglose in the Pyrenees, and from Laghet on the Côte d'Azur. They seem to be most common in France.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4783430417/" title="detail of wall rosary with rose-engine relief carving"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4783430417_906d46e991.jpg" width="290" alt="rose-detail"></a><br /><br />Many of these rosaries have inscriptions on the heart-shaped medallions that draw the ends of the loop together, and the crucifixes of these are often decorated as well. My Paternosters correspondent points out that these designs are not carved, but stamped into the soft surface of the wood. This one is stamped "Souvenir de ND de Laghet" (ND standing for Notre-Dame). The other side says "Coeur Immaculé de Marie protege nous" ("Immaculate Heart of Mary protect us").<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4784062960/" title="closup of stamped wood heart"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4784062960_d5e7ca8ec2.jpg" width="290" alt="ovals-heart"></a><br /><br />Like the other wall rosaries, people who have these for sale on eBay often have no idea what they are. I've bought a few for as little as $5. Since the beads are of a type known from the Renaissance, they make good material for historical reproductions, and I don't mind taking apart a modern rosary for its beads if some of the beads of a rosary like this have been damaged (which is often the case). <br /><br />I've also seen these rosaries offered for as much as $500 -- generally with no takers at that price. These rosaries are still being produced and are generally in the $40-$50 range new. Unless an example has a particularly interesting history, or unless its age can be documented (which is difficult, as these beads are of a style that doesn't change much) I'm always a bit sad to see them sold for much more than they're worth.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-41690143363593991632010-06-29T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:11.660-08:00What not to do...This particular set of pretty pictures is pretty much about what NOT to do when making medieval-style rosaries. <br /><br />Or at least, it's about some of the gift rosaries I've made that have some feature or other that is certainly not documentable as medieval, in my current state of knowledge.<br /><br />First, you should ignore the elephant on this next set of beads: it's there because the recipient likes elephants. ;) <br /><br />Other than the elephant, this is an attempt to construct a set of beads that might be appropriate for a Viking. This isn't quite as lunatic as it sounds: a good many of the Vikings did become Christians. However the peak centuries of what are popularly called "the Vikings" were a couple of hundred years before Christian prayer beads became really popular, so these are probably an anachronism. (And so is the style of the elephant pendant.)<br /><br />I was inspired to create these by the marker beads, which are some sort of low-grade carnelian with silver caps. The end bead is a larger carved wood bead with more or less matching caps, and the pendant is a "knotwork" cross (though it doesn't look much like actual Norse or Irish knotwork). The small beads are carnelian.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4689701554/" title="Vikingbeads by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4689701554_bff04bcd0f_b.jpg" width="290" alt="Vikingbeads" /></a><br /><br />This next set of beads has two features I wouldn't recommend if you're trying to make a set of documentably medieval beads. As I've mentioned before, I don't think I've seen any clear examples of paternoster or rosary beads with Ave beads (the small ones) of two colors alternating. I certainly haven't seen any actual surviving ones that are that way. I wrote a bit more about the doubtful evidence from paintings and woodcuts in my post on the <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/12/cabbage-noster.html">Cabbage-Noster</a>.<br /><br />The other feature I don't recommend here is the faceted marker beads. While the carving and faceting of beads by hand was certainly possible in the Middle Ages, it was expensive, and not something that was normally done to glass beads: I don't think <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/03/sparklies.html">faceted glass beads</a> became really common until machines were invented to do it rapidly and in quantity. I also don't think this particular style of faceting is at all likely for medieval beads. I bought these black faceted beads years ago and am finally using up the last of them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746254415/" title="AnTir2010 by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4746254415_4a519e8ae2.jpg" width="290" alt="AnTir2010"></a><br /><br /><i>Note: if you're wondering about the funny-looking background of some of these, I photograph most beads on my scanner, using a piece of synthetic white "fur" as the background. I'm in too much of a hurry at the moment to do the meticulous retouching to eliminate the shadows of the "fur.")</i><br /><br />My third example today is of something that I actually think is plausible, though I can't prove it. This rosary was made for someone who wanted something in the style of "Henry VIII before the break with Rome." The flat, rose-shaped brass beads were something I ran across in a bead catalog, and I quite like them. The rose symbolism is quite appropriate for that period in English history -- a heraldic badge used by Henry VIII and his first wife Catharine of Aragon was a round symbol made from half a rose (for Henry) and half a pomegranate (for Catherine). We know that marker beads for rosaries were made in <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2004/12/lozenges-flowers-sabots.html">all sorts of shapes</a>, some of which may also have heraldic significance, and we can be fairly sure that some marker beads were flat rather than round, so I was quite pleased to find these. Of course aristocratic beads like these would more likely have had actual gold markers; I don't know to what extent gold jewelry was imitated in brass in the Renaissance.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746254315/" title="Aurelia2010 by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4746254315_0bc1b0ce2b.jpg" width="290" alt="Aurelia2010"></a><br /><br />I'm much more dubious about the leaves I added to the same rose-shaped marker beads in the next rosary. We do know that at times the gauds (marker beads) were set off from the other beads by what might be called "spacers," smaller beads that are mostly decorative and don't "count" as part of the beads used for prayer. (Germans call them "Zwischenperlen," which I still think is a lovely word.) I was given these little leaf beads (also brass) as a gift, and my modern taste says they set off the rose beads nicely. But I can't document anything like this. All the Zwischenperlen I have seen in historical beads are little round, oval or flattened oval beads.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4746893916/" title="Alfar-Ketiley by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4075/4746893916_e40791428f.jpg" width="290" alt="Alfar-Ketiley"></a><br /><br />Like King René of Anjou (1409-1480) I make rosaries as a hobby. Unlike René, however, I try to make mine in the style of a historical period quite different from my own. ;) It's an interesting exercise, but it almost always means making some compromises with history, since (for one thing) for the most part we don't have exactly the same materials people in the Middle Ages had to work with. The round glass beads I use so often, for instance, are made by pressing -- a 19th century invention -- rather than being individually hand-wound on a mandrel. And we are not medieval people ourselves, so what seemed appropriate or attractive to them may or may not seem that way to us -- and vice versa. <br /><br />These particular sets of beads show stronger tendencies than (I hope) most of what I make to "bend" the unwritten rules of medieval style in order to produce something I thought the recipients of the gifts would like. They're still fun, and making medieval rosaries as gifts is an incentive to research and debate the issues that come up in making them.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-75222784623772478842010-06-20T12:00:00.001-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.255-08:00Off the wall<h2>wall rosaries part I</h2><br />Back in the very beginning of this blog I wrote an article called <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2004/10/up-against-wall.html">Up against the wall</a>, which discussed very large rosaries, made for hanging on the wall. I mentioned wall rosaries again <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/05/fish-bones-lily-stones.html">recently</a>, and I've been collecting images for a while so I could write more about them.<br /><br />The purpose of a wall rosary is to decorate a room and to serve as an expression of faith. It may be hung on a wall (though I'm not always clear on exactly how you're supposed to do this -- picture hooks?), or draped gracefully over a table or other piece of furniture. I don't get the impression that wall rosaries are actually used for prayer very often.<br /><br />Wall rosaries tend to have beads anywhere from half an inch to an inch or so in diameter. The beads can be plain or with some sort of design or image on them. They can be connected by wire loops or strung on strings. The only thing they have in common is their size, although most of them are also arranged in the same pattern as a normal 20th century rosary: five groups of ten beads each, and an extra short string of beads above the crucifix.<br /><br />When people don't recognize a wall rosary, they often assume that such a large rosary must be a "belt rosary" -- the sort of thing a monk or priest would wear attached to the belt over their religious habit. It's true that many monks, friars and nuns in traditional habits do wear a conspicuous rosary: this is a tradition that seems to have become especially popular in the 19th and early 20th century, with the upsurge in devotion to the Virgin Mary. <br /><br />But if you actually look at these "belt rosaries," while they may have beads somewhat bigger than your ordinary pocket rosary, they are usually not <b>that</b> big. The standard size of beads for most modern rosaries is about 6 millimeters. Belt rosaries may be in the 10mm to 12mm range, but that's still half an inch or less. It's not at all unusual to find wall rosaries with beads over an inch, and this explanation doesn't account for those.<br /><br />Another theory people come up with is that these big rosaries are somehow "pentitential." With (I suppose) vague memories of Scrooge's ghost dragging heavy, clanking chains, people suppose that great sinners must have been saddled with giant (clanking? ;) rosaries as some sort of badge of shame. It's an entertaining image, but doesn't have any basis in fact that I know of. (See <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/08/this-rosary-is-shot.html">This rosary is shot</a> for another instance of this idea.)<br /><br />The two most common sorts of wall rosary have beads respectively of wood and of a whitish synthetic compound that at first glance looks somewhat like ivory. Here's a common type of wooden wall rosary:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4718344930/" title="Wooden1 on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/4718344930_33a2dc6e07_b.jpg" width="290" alt="Wooden1" /></a><br /><br />The ivory-colored synthetic rosaries tend to look like this, although there are a number of slightly different styles:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4717700947/" title="oxolyte on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4717700947_c2c3c04b26_o.jpg" width="290" alt="oxolyte" /></a><br /><br />The artwork on these last is often in a rather striking 1960s artistic style -- I suspect the 1960s are when these began to be manufactured in quantity. <br /><br />Both the wooden versions and this version are still being made and sold today, for instance at <a href="http://www.romegiftshop.com/wallrosaries.html">Rome Gift Shop</a> and <a href="http://wallrosaries.com/woodrosfromi1.html">Italianrosaries.com</a>. These rosaries tend to sell for prices in the range of $40 to $60, a fact I wish that more eBay sellers knew. (I recently saw one for which the seller was asking $500 -- he said he'd bought it for $150.)<br /><br />I plan to write about both these common types at some point, but for now, here are a few of the less common types I've found.<br /><br />Until recently there was a website that had a number of different styles using various colors and shapes of large glass beads. That site was down when I last checked, though. I'd imagine a wall rosary made of glass could be quite pretty, but also rather heavy.<br /><br />A <a href="http://www.guardianangelstore.com/product_info-10622+5680.html">lighter-weight version</a> has beads made of clear hard acrylic plastic with metal decoration. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4717701147/" title="acrylic on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4717701147_ec926d02aa_o.jpg" width="290" alt="acrylic" /></a><br /><br />Glow-in-the-dark plastic rosaries also come in large "wall versions." I have to admit, these are not to my personal taste: the idea of having a large glowing rosary on a wall seems a bit eerie to me. But obviously some people like them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4718345504/" title="glow on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4718345504_2f2fccd4c9.jpg" width="290" alt="glow" /></a><br /><br />So far I've only seen one wall rosary made from leather. This is also the only one I've seen that has "beads" that are flat circles rather than round beads -- logical for a wall decoration, I'd think. The seller of this one on eBay said it was purchased about 50 years ago from monks in Florence, Italy.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4718346056/" title="leatherbeads on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/4718346056_9f7c30641e.jpg" width="290" alt="leatherbeads" /></a><br /><br />And I've seen a number of wall rosaries made from various kinds of clay or ceramic, glazed or unglazed. These can be quite attractive in a "folk art" sort of way (I rather like these myself). I'd think that the weight might make them somewhat difficult to hang on a wall, however.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4718345866/" title="clay on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4028/4718345866_1ef9bb7625_b.jpg" width="290" alt="clay" /></a>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-27247820881945830622010-06-13T12:00:00.001-07:002018-12-20T11:09:11.452-08:00Pretty picturesEvery so often I make a batch of medieval-style rosaries as gifts for friends or special occasions (and before you ask, no, I'm not making them for sale).<br /><br />And when I'm busy or in the middle of research for some later posts (as now), sometimes you get a "pretty pictures" post with some chat about how I made each piece and what I find out along the way.<br /><br />Here is one such post.<br /><br />This first rosary is the subject of an experiment. It has a braided cord -- in this case, a 3-strand, fairly coarse braid because these beads have big holes and because a 3-strand braid is the only one I can currently do easily without looking at it. I'd like to do more braided cords, because I think they are likely to be more durable than plain silk twist (as I wrote <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/08/threads-of-silk-and-gold.html">here</a>), but I find them very time-consuming to do. <br /><br />I also didn't glue or put a crimp bead over the knot as I usually do; instead I took sewing thread and sewed through the knot several times to keep it from unraveling. So this one is a test. It's for someone who's likely to give it some hard wear, and we'll see how it holds up.<br /><br />The small beads are bone -- about 8mm, since I forgot to photograph this one with a ruler -- and the red beads are glass, part of a necklace I bought from eBay that was supposed to be coral but wasn't. (Glass is heavier and colder than coral to the touch, and often has swirl marks: these beads do, and coral doesn't.)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4689066427/" title="Soldier by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4072/4689066427_9d4f853479.jpg" width="290" alt="Soldier" /></a><br /><br />This next set is smoky quartz (8mm) and the five different colored beads specified in the story from Alanus de Rupe's early rosary manual that I wrote about in <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/10/alanus-de-rupe-and-beads-of-death.html">Alanus de Lupe and the beads of death ;)</a>. Each colored bead has special symbolism.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4689701414/" title="Alanus-beads-dark by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4689701414_507373851d.jpg" width="290" alt="Alanus-beads-dark" /></a><br /><br />These next are some beads I threw together quickly as a prize for a tournament -- hence the rather random charms attached. Although it's a well-known Christian symbol, I've never actually seen a fish attached to a historical rosary. I suspect the fish symbol fell out of favor after the early Christian centuries and was revived after the Reformation by Christians seeking to return to their "roots." <br /><br />The small beads are natural-colored mother-of-pearl, which I really like the look of. I don't know -- and would be interested to know -- whether the rosaries mentioned in historical documents as being made of mother-of-pearl were this natural color or whether they were bleached white as we usually see today. <br /><br />The markers are carved jasper. I haven't seen anything quite like this five-petaled rose motif as actual historical rosary beads (there's one example of something similar in wood), but depicting rosary beads as roses is very common in woodcuts, paintings and statues. Sometimes the Ave beads in such artwork are plain round beads and the gauds or marker beads are depicted as roses, and we know markers were made in many shapes, so it is at least plausible.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4689701200/" title="Esfenn06 by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4689701200_31a0a5e668.jpg" width="290" alt="Esfenn06" /></a><br /><br />The last one for now is in memory of a friend's favorite saint: <a href="http://saints.sqpn.com/sainta47.htm">Saint Amalberga</a>. I had never heard of her and had to look her up. There are actually three saints by this name, but their legends have become confused. The earliest, Saint Amalberga of Maubeuge (who died in 690) was a relative of Blessed Pepin of Landin; three of her children also became saints (Gudula, Emebert, and Reineldis, the last of whom made a pilgrimage to Rome and whose statue I wrote about <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/12/statuesque-ii.html">here</a>). This Amalberga is said to have crossed a lake to bring the Gospel to the people on the other side, standing on the backs of two helpful sturgeons that appeared for this purpose. (I envision a sort of medieval jet-skis.) <br /><br />Another Amalberga lived a century or so later. She was a nun and is said to have refused marriage proposals from the Emperor -- either Charles Martel or Charlemagne, depending on which version you read -- and when he tried to drag her away from the altar, he broke her arm, and as a result was stricken with an illness which she later miraculously cured. The legend has her coffin floating away accompanied by fish, so there is something fishy about her too. There was a third Saint Amalberga, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, but she doesn't come along till the twelfth century.<br /><br />These beads are green glass with mother-of-pearl markers, and I added an end bead of carved jade because I had it lying around and it seemed to go with the color theme. The attachments are another fish (especially appropriate in this case) and a square flat cross.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4689066983/" title="Amalberga by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4689066983_639d9b9a2c_b.jpg" width="290" alt="Amalberga" /></a><br /><br />All of these projects are attempts to construct something that is appropriate as a gift for a particular friend or occasion, but at the same time is more or less plausible as a representation of what medieval rosary beads may have looked like. We're handicapped in trying to do this by the fact that we don't have the same materials available to us and by our incomplete knowledge. But it's still fun and still an interesting and useful exercise.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-65527662287990350212010-06-06T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.106-08:00Rosaries in Peru<h2>The Book of Guaman Poma</h2><br />It's difficult to stay on topic while doing research. If you have any natural curiosity at all, you inevitably run across fascinating bits and pieces leading in all sorts of directions, and there's seldom time to follow them up properly. Reading an article about rosaries in the Andes recently led me not only to <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/05/la-divina-pastora-virgin-mary-as.html">La Divina Pastora</a>, but to a fascinating and unique book that is now online.<br /><br />The <b>Book of Guamán Poma</b> is a stinging critique of Spanish colonial rule, written between 1600 and 1615 by a native Peruvian. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Guaman_Poma_de_Ayala">Guamán or Huamán Poma</a> (his Inca name) converted to Christianity and adopted the name Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala. His 1,189-page book was intended as a letter of protest to King Philip III of Spain but was never sent. The manuscript has been in the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen since at least 1660.<br /><br />The full title of the book is <b>El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno</b> (The First New Chronicle and Good Government -- "corónica" being a mistake for "crónica"). In it he outlines the injustices of colonial rule and proposes a new system of government, which would include drawing on the structures of traditional local government and appointing native Peruvians to many positions of authority. Needless to say, such a system was never implemented.<br /><br />What inspired him to write such a book was probably a combination of factors. Guamán Poma worked with various Spanish officials as a Quechua translator. He himself was from a noble Inca family and lost all his estates in a series of disastrous lawsuits. In the late 1590s, he apparently became involved as one of a team of scribes and illustrators for Fray Martín de Murúa's <b>Historia general del Piru</b>. This experience seems to have prompted him to begin his own chronicle from a native point of view, which was -- as one might expect -- very different from Murúa's. His illustration of Murúa, in fact, shows him kicking an indigenous woman seated at a loom and is captioned, "The Mercedarian friar Martín de Murúa abuses his parishioners and takes justice into his own hands." <br /><br />The Royal Danish Library has recently put the entire Book of Guamán Poma online, and it's fascinating. The best starting point is probably <a href="http://www.kb.dk/elib/mss/poma/index-en.htm">the index page</a>, which contains an outline of the book and at the top, controls for viewing and enlarging pages. Each page shows a scanned image from the manuscript and a transliteration of the original text with modern footnotes. The button marked "Amplicación" leads to a much larger image of the original page.<br /><br />What I immediately noticed, of course, was that many of the nearly 400 drawings in the Book of Guamán Poma show native Peruvians using rosary beads. (After researching historical rosary beads for this long, my eye inevitably goes straight to the beads in any picture!)<br /><br />Here, for instance, is image #835, which is captioned, ""A Christian married couple of the Andes kneels to pray before an image of Christ crucified."<br /> <br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4643448195/" ><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3345/4643448195_d7c5a29a49.jpg" width="290" alt="A Christian married couple of the Andes, from the Book of Guaman Poma" /></a><br /><br />I was especially struck by this picture since you can "see" the couple saying prayers, indicated by the "speech scrolls" coming out of their mouths. This is an artistic convention that I've seen before in native South and Central American art (nost notably the Maya).<br /><br /><i>(By the way, I've done some Photoshop work on the images on this page, as you'll see if you compare them to the originals on the Danish Library website. I've lightened them and tried to fade the lettering in the background to make the pictures clearer. The originals all show lettering coming through from the other side of the page, some of them quite strongly.)</i><br /><br />I'm not sure whether it's also artistic convention or a reflection of real practice to show people holding their rosaries with the cross upward. The majority of the illustrations that simply show someone holding a rosary have it oriented this way.<br /><br />Another example (image 775) is captioned,"Exemplary Christians: A local Andean lord, seated on an <i>usnu</i> [Inka ceremonial seat], reads to his wife." <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4643448557/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/4643448557_8cfb88dfd1.jpg" width="290" alt="A local Andean lord and his wife, from the Book of Guaman Poma" /></a><br /><br />As is common in these pictures, the "lord" is wearing a mixture of native and Spanish style clothing -- note, for instance, his hat, which is almost identical to one worn in a portrait of <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Felipe_II_de_Espa%C3%B1a">Philip II of Spain</a>. While the lord's wife is holding her rosary, he is wearing his around his neck, which as I've mentioned <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/01/ring-around-collar.html">before</a> was actually not uncommon in the 16th century.<br /><br />Another example of mixed clothing is this image (image 806), "The chief local magistrate (alcade mayor), or <i>túqrikuq</i>, of the municipal council in this kingdom."<br /> <br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4643448739/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3516/4643448739_7c39ecb654.jpg" width="290" alt="The chief local magistrate, or túqrikuq, from the Book of Guaman Poma" /></a><br /><br />As you can see, these pictures are actually more or less just pen and ink sketches, so they don't contain a lot of detail and probably can't be relied on to be totally accurate. However it's interesting to see in this one that there is some empty thread between the bead he is holding in his hand and the next group of beads. This suggests -- and it's really no surprise -- that these are beads strung on a thread, and that each bead is moved along the thread by the fingers as its corresponding prayer is said.<br /><br />A closeup of the next picture (image 808) shows how much or how little we can actually see of these rosaries. Here is "The local magistrate, or <i>camiua</i>, of the crown."<br /> <br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4644062170/" ><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/4644062170_9b0180c262.jpg" width="290" alt="The local magistrate, or camiua, from the Book of Guaman Poma" /></a><br /><br />And a detail of the beads he is holding: <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4644088996/" ><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4644088996_d7a3748594_o.jpg" width="187" height="320" alt="Detail of image 808, from the Book of Guaman Poma" /></a><br /><br />Quick though this sketch is, we can clearly see two sizes of beads, the smaller Ave beads and the larger, and more decorated, marker beads or Paters. The lower part of the rosary shows ten Aves on either side, but the top part of the circle has 9 beads visible on one side, 4 on the other, and only space for about another 4 or 5 hidden in the hand. So this probably isn't intended as a literal bead-by-bead rendering.<br /><br />We can also get a good look at the sketch of the cross. The interesting things here are that it has some sort of bead or knob at the end of each arm, and also that it is equal-armed, instead of the cross with a longer bottom part that we are more used to seeing. There is also no indication of a figure of Christ on the cross -- again not surprising, since most rosaries at and before this date seem to have had plain crosses.<br /><br />Several other images in the book also show rosaries. <a href="http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/837/es/text/">Image 837</a> shows a woman praying (similar to the couple in the first picture). I won't try to give a complete list, but <a href="http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/757/es/text/">image 757</a> shows another official holding beads, <a href="http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/825/es/text/">image 825</a> shows a royal messenger wearing his beads around his neck (his hands are rather full -- he's carrying a bag over his wrist, a staff and something that looks like a note in one hand, is blowing a horn held in his other hand, has a flag flying from his hat and is accompanied by a dog). <a href="http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/828/es/text/">Image 828</a> shows a rosary lying, along with a pen case and inkwell, on a scribe's table, and <a href="http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/933/es/text/">image 933</a> shows more people praying, this time holding not only rosaries but also candles about three feet tall. <a href="http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/841/es/text/">Image 841</a> shows the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter, the Virgin standing within a giant rosary. Probably my favorite image (because of the funny hats) is <a href="http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/17/es/text/">image 17</a>, which shows Guaman Poma himself as a young boy (wearing a top hat), his father Martín (wearing a native-style headband) and his mother, the noblewoman Juana, being instructed in the Christian faith by a priest named Martín Ayala (wearing what looks like a teapot on his head -- but it's really a biretta or clerical hat).Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-80071995713355152982010-05-30T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.344-08:00La Divina Pastora: Virgin Mary as ShepherdessWhile reading the other day about rosaries in the Andes, I ran across something I hadn't seen before: mention of devotion to the Virgin Mary under the title "La Divina Pastora" (the Divine Shepherdess). <br /><br />The article I was reading was <i>A Short History of Rosaries in the Andes</i> by Penelope Dransart<a href="#1">[1]</a>. She says:<br /><br /><blockquote>"One of the most prominent attributes of the Rosario [image of the Virgin as Our Lady of the Rosary] is, of course, the rosary, but this feature is also shared in the iconography of a related version, the Virgin of the Shepherds. In this respect, a painting dated 1703, entitled La Divina Pastora (The Divine Shepherdess) in the Museo Nactional del Arte, La Paz, Bolivia, is of interest. In this picture the Virgin is surrounded by sheep which have roses in their mouths and rosaries of black beads hanging over their backs. Alternatively, some of the sheep have the characteristic knotted belt cords which form part of a Franciscan monk's habit draped over their backs. In the background, a lamb wearing a black rosary with a pendant crucifix has a speech scroll emanating from his mouth, bearing the words. 'Ave Maria.'"<br /></blockquote><br />I would love to see what this picture looks like, but the La Paz museum doesn't seem to have much of their collection online, and other sources have come up blank so far. I did, however, run across this one, which seems from the description to be along the same lines, although without the black rosaries. This is a modern painting in the "Baroque Colonial" Peruvian style by David Chavez Galdos<a href="#2">[2]</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4645290157/" title="La Divina Pastora by David Chavez Galdos © 2010 Escuela cusqueña - Arte y Fe, Cuzco"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3389/4645290157_c394fac548_o.jpg" width="278" height="395" alt="La Divina Pastora by David Chavez Galdos © 2010 Escuela cusqueña - Arte y Fe, Cuzco" /></a><br /><br />In Spain, devotion to La Divina Pastora appears to have started in Seville, also right around 1700, and may indeed have originated there and been carried quickly to the Americas. Brother Isidore, a Capuchin (Franciscan) priest greatly devoted to Mary, is said to have commissioned a painting of the Virgin as shepherdess from the artistic school of Alonso Miguel de Tovar. There are earlier references to Mary as shepherdess in the writings of Saint John of God, Saint Peter of Alcantara and the visionary Maria de Agreda.<br /><br />The <a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divina_Pastora_de_las_Almas">Spanish Wikipedia article</a> (whose sources include two books on the devotion) recounts that Brother Isidore specified that the Virgin wear a red tunic, a white sheepskin around her waist, and a blue mantle slung across her left shoulder. A shepherd's staff is behind her on the right. In her left arm she holds the Infant Jesus and her right hand reaches toward a sheep taking refuge in her lap. She is surrounded by sheep bearing rose garlands in their mouths.<br /><br />A little investigating online suggests that devotion to La Divina Pastora spread widely in the early 1700s and is still popular in Spain, Portugal, South America and the Philippines. The connection to roses and the rosary is not always apparent, as in this statue, located in Nava del Rey (Valladolid, Spain) and attributed to the woodcarver Luis Salvador Carmona (1709-1767). There are a number of Brotherhoods or Societies of the Divine Shepherdess in Spain and Portugal.<br /><br /><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4645904582/" title="La Divina Pastora, from Nava del Rey (Valladolid), attributed to Luis Salvador Carmona 1709-1767 "><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/4645904582_11f3309c36_o.jpg" width="290" alt="La Divina Pastora, from Nava del Rey (Valladolid), attributed to Luis Salvador Carmona 1709-1767"></a></p><br /><br />Variations on this title of Mary include Divina Pastora de las Almas (Divine Shepherdess of Souls), Madre Divina Pastora (Divine Mother Shepherdess) or Madre del Buen Pastor (Mother of the Good Shepherd, since Jesus is often given that title). The images may also vary: Mary is usually wearing a big floppy hat, but she may be shown alone or with the Infant Jesus, with or without a shepherd's crook. She may have a whole flock of sheep or just one or two. The roses are sometimes red on one side and white on the other: this may have connections with earlier rosary images that show groups of white, red and gold roses representing the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries of the rosary. <br /><br />As with other images of Mary -- and as you'll quickly see if you Google images of "La Divina Pastora" -- many decorations can be added to the original statue or painting, including rosaries over Mary's arm, lace and ruffles on her dress (a bit impractical for an actual shepherd!) and a gold crown, either instead of or rather awkwardly perched on top of her hat. The painting above solves the hat + crown problem by having cherubs hold the crown in the air over her head.<br /><br />The Virgin Mary has a seemingly endless variety of titles in the Christian tradition, each meaning something special in terms of imagery. Roses are a common metaphor for the rosary in other contexts, so it's not surprising to see them here. I'm enjoying roses in bloom where I live right now, so it seems appropriate. Whether sheep will actually eat roses in real life I have no idea!<br /><br /><h2>notes</h2><br />[1]<a id="1"></a> Dransart, P. 1998. A short history of rosaries in the Andes. In <i>Beads and bead makers: gender, material culture and meaning</i> (ed.) L. Sciama, 129-46. Oxford: Berg.<br /><p>[2]<a id="2"></a> Image used by permission. Copyright © 2010 Escuela cusqueña - Arte y Fe: http://www.antiquaexcelsa.com/barroco_colonial_espanol.htm</p>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-82670641268081941642010-05-23T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.433-08:00Beads in bagsI'm sure I'm not alone in wondering where people kept their paternoster or rosary beads when not using them. As we have seen, sometimes they were <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/12/if-youve-got-it-flaunt-it.html">worn as part of everyday dress</a>, as routinely as we'd wear a wristwatch or cell phone. But where were they when they were not being worn?<br /><br />Meredith Harmon on the <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paternosters">Paternosters list on Yahoo</a> turned up a painting that answers this question -- at least for one instance. It's a painting of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, painted by Gerard David somewhere in the late 1400s. It's now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: for some reason it doesn't appear anywhere on their website, although the other panel from the same painting, showing the angel, does.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4587345565/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4587345565_50a3a2ec34.jpg" width="290" alt="Gerard David Annunciation in the Met" /></a><br /><br />Just visible in the bottom right corner of this painting is a cloth pouch with rosary beads spilling out of it. Here's an enlargement (as always, click on the picture to see a larger view):<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4587338189/" ><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4587338189_433fb64357.jpg" width="290" alt="Pouch detail" /></a><br /><br />The beads are gold-colored but don't look metallic; my guess is that they are supposed to be amber or glass. Just visible above the edge of the pouch in the back is a decorated silver gaud or marker bead of some sort (not much detail is visible), followed by ten smaller beads. The string is dark, probably black. On the other side of the loop we can see nine beads. Both strings run through a round, decorated silver ball at the far left, and it looks like they are knotted together on the far side.<br /><br />The pouch has two black drawstrings that appear to end in knobs (knots?) and there are matching black tassels at both bottom corners. <br /><br />It's a bit difficult to estimate the dimensions of the pouch and beads, because they are in the foreground of the painting and the perspective is a bit strange. It looks to me as though the beads are a little smaller in diameter than the Virgin's fingers, perhaps around 10 to 12 millimeters in size. The silver ball is about twice this size. My guess is that it may be a pomander.<br /><br />Using the bead as a rough unit of measure for the sides of the pouch, the bag looks like it might work out to be about 8 to 9 inches square. That's a bigger pouch than would be needed just for the beads. <br /><br />Another painting by Gerard David, probably painted around the same time and now at the Detroit Institute of Art, provides a clue. This second Annunciation is a more compact painting, and the Virgin is at a rather different angle, but the bag in the foreground is identical, right down to the folds and wrinkles (except that it's blue this time). <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4587979280/" title="Gerard David Annunciation at DIA"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4012/4587979280_181860d106.jpg" width="290" alt="Gerard David Annunciation at DIA" /></a><br /><br />Those who have commented on these paintings suggest that both bags are intended to be book bags. Looking at both paintings, the bags do seem to be about the right size to hold the book that Mary has in front of her in each case. <br /><br />The earlier Merode altarpiece (also at the Met) by the workshop of Robert Campin has a very similar bag under the book on the table, and here too it looks to be just about the right size to hold the book. This purse also has two drawstrings, and it looks as though one ends in a round, thread-covered button, and the other has a longer string ending in a tassel (though most of it's hidden under a slip of paper). There is a contrasting colored lining and some decoration around the mouth of the bag and down the side seams. This painting and its two wings have all sorts of delightful details in them if you ever get to see them close up -- carpenters' tools in Saint Joseph's shop, a towel with striped borders and fringe, a vase, two keys, and a candlestick, among others.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4587968490/" title="Detail of book from the Merode altarpiece"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4587968490_5b57fc704e.jpg" width="290" alt="Detail of book from the Merode altarpiece" /></a><br /><br />(The only beads in the Merode altarpiece, however, are held by one of the donors of the painting in the left wing of the tryptych. These are a long straight string of perhaps 100 smallish red beads, with white-headed black tassels on both ends. I have a small picture of this, but I'd love to have a detail shot of the entire string to see if more details are visible.)<br /><br />So from this evidence, we can suggest that beads, at least some of the time, were in book bags. It does make a certain amount of sense to carry one's devotional beads in the same bag as one's devotional book (which is probably what the pictured books are). And we have some pretty good pictures of what the book bags were like, if we want to create a modern reproduction, to carry our own books, beads, or whatever we like.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-37052642278274832232010-05-17T12:00:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:11.630-08:00Edelsteine: Himmels SchnureA book worth breaking my no-book-buying-because-I'm-poor moratorium for doesn't come along every day. But this one definitely qualifies.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3583039014/" title="Edelsteine by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3600/3583039014_78795c61a3.jpg" width="290" alt="Edelsteine: cover of exhibition catalog" /></a><br /><br />I was alerted to this book by Elizabeth Alles from the <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paternosters">Paternosters mailing list at Yahoo</a> -- one of the many reasons I've been glad I established that list a few years ago. It has full color photos of more than 500 small and large rosaries of many different types, and as you can see from the cover, the photography is excellent.<br /><br />The book is available <a href="http://www.kirchen.net/dommuseum_en/medienshop_liste.asp?dynKatID=33">directly from the museum</a>, but if you don't speak German, the online interface is a bit confusing. I'll put some ordering details at the bottom of this post.<br /><br />I haven't sat down and slogged through all the German yet, but this is a catalog from an exhibition of a very large private collection. There are about 40 pieces dating from before 1600; most of the rest are 17th, 18th and 19th century. This same collection has been exhibited and published elsewhere as well. (There's a smaller 2003 book -- look for the name of the collector, Fredy Bühler.)<br /><br />The book also includes quite a few rosary-related works of art -- including a picture I've wanted for a long time, a GOOD rendition of the large altarpiece of the Rosary Brotherhood from the Church of St. Andreas in Cologne, Germany. As I discovered when I went there, the painting is very large, mounted high up on a wall, and very difficult to photograph from the floor. Older photos I've seen are mostly very small.<br /><br />As eye candy, this book is marvellous. But as I mentioned <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2010/03/bottoms-up.html">earlier</a>, there are things about it that I find a bit troubling from a scholarly point of view.<br /><br />Something very characteristic of private collections -- and true of this one -- is that everything is pretty. There are no partial or broken rosaries, no missing or damaged beads. Of course, part of this is a natural tendency for the nice ones to be what gets picked out for the exhibition and the book. But it leads me to wonder whether there are any less-than-perfect specimens in the collection: I, for one, would find them at least as interesting as the ones shown.<br /><br />I am also disappointed to see only a bare minimum of information about each item -- a date, an assigned place of origin (on what basis it doesn't say), the bead materials (if known), and identification of any medals or other attachments. For the first half of the catalog, there are not even any measurements. In fact, there is nothing I would call discussion on any of the bead entries, including any mention of why the dates were assigned. Rosaries in general are very difficult to date just by looking at them, and the dearth of information is very disappointing. <br /><br />And as I mentioned in my previous post, some of the reconstructions here bother me.<br /><br />The first actual beads we encounter in the book, for instance, are these:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3721033946/" title="Edelsteine-1 on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2613/3721033946_0dc0da16af.jpg" width="290" alt="Edelsteine-1" /></a><br /><br />The first thing that struck me is that none of these are in the sort of arrangement that I would expect a rosary to be. Granted, we know that not all rosaries, even before 1600, had their Ave (small) beads in multiples of 5 or 10. But if a string is not broken or missing some beads, one would expect the numbers to correspond with some known devotional practice. I have seen little or no evidence of any such practice that would require, for instance, groups of 4 or 6, so I continue to think that fives, tens, and perhaps occasionally <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/03/six-seven-and-servites.html">sevens</a> are the numbers one ought to expect. <br /><br />These first three sets of beads in the book are arranged in 6 groups of 4, 5 groups of 4, and 5 groups of 3. The beads on succeeding pages are predominantly in arrangements like 6x8, 3x8, 4x7, and 4x6. Outside of the tenners I discussed in my previous post, there are relatively few 10- or 5-bead groups. I haven't done a statistical analysis, but this looks very much to me as though whatever beads were available have been simply divided into equal parts, a marker inserted between each group, and the whole joined up into a circle. All of the rosaries presented in this book are arranged to look like complete pieces as they stand. I suspect this is misleading.<br /><br />My second concern is about the way some of the sets are strung. It seems that wherever there is a metal part that has two holes or attachment points, it has been attached to the string of beads at both ends:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3720223245/" title="Edelsteine-2-5 on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2504/3720223245_9b79800180.jpg" width="290" alt="Edelsteine-2-5" /></a><br /><br />In the period artwork I've seen, and in other surviving originals, crosses, images of saints, and medals like these appear as pendants, and the loop at the bottom has a hanging pearl or jewel, as so commonly seen in <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/09/some-16th-and-17th-c-crosses.html">16th century and later jewelry</a>. I don't think I've ever seen such a piece attached to the beads at both ends. Looking through the book, it does seem that a few of the pendants have been reconstructed as pendants with hanging pearls, but this only seems to happen when there actually is a surviving pearl.<br /><br />One other thing struck me as odd. Several of the rosaries, like the one below, are strung not on any kind of fiber (silk is the most common) but on a fine metal chain. As far as I can tell from the photos, this is simply run through the beads as if it were thread. As I mentioned in discussing the Neville rosaries, I suspect this is a modern practice. I don't know exactly when chains fine enough to go through a bead hole became widely available -- I suspect, not until they were able to be made cheaply by machine.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3721034482/" title="Edelsteine-3 on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2609/3721034482_9f2eef561e_b.jpg" width="290" alt="Edelsteine-3" /></a><br /><br />Don't get me wrong here -- this is a very well-produced book, with lots of nice pictures and an amazing collection of medals, crosses, bead types, rosary cases (one shaped like a carrot!), reliquaries, tassels, carved beads and other parts. There are close to 600 rosaries pictured, including some very close closeups in the chapter-head pages and a lot of information about various medals and other pilgrimage souvenirs. (I could wish the rest of the photos were bigger, but I'm probably insatiable in that regard ;)<br /><br />There are also several disk-rosaries that use bone disks as counters rather than beads -- and one with tin rings, which I'd never seen before. As I mentioned there are numerous illustrations of historical paintings, woodcuts, sculptures and bits of rosary literature, many of which were new to me. It's well worth buying if you are interested in historical religious artifacts.<br /><br />But it's sad that in many respects it is lacking in the sort of information about the actual pieces shown that would be helpful to someone doing serious research. <br /><br /><h2>ordering information</h2><br />The link to the ordering page is <a href="http://www.kirchen.net/dommuseum_en/medienshop_liste.asp?dynKatID=33">here</a>. Clicking on "Bestellen" brings up an order form, which is clearly not designed with overseas orders in mind. "Vorname, Familienname" are first and last names. "PLZ" is zip code, "Ort" is city. Since there is no place for "country," I simply put *all* my address information in the "Strasse" line (literally "street"), including street address, city, state and USA. It worked.<br /><br />Payment is by wire transfer after the book arrives: my copy took about 8 weeks after ordering. An invoice is included with the book. My bank charged me $20 to do the wire transfer; the cost of the book plus shipping was about $55 if I remember correctly.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-19591214848121259282010-05-09T13:53:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:11.244-08:00Fish bones & lily stonesBecause my name is out there on the Internet, I get the occasional question from someone trying to find information about historical rosaries. Sometimes the questions turn out to be quite fascinating, and I learn things I may never have imagined. <br /><br />One of the most interesting so far was a note I got late last summer from an archaeozoologist -- of all things -- asking about rosaries made of fish bones. She had seen my photo of a large "wall rosary" made of shark vertebrae, which I ran across when it was sold on eBay:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/33802198@N00/1288307/" ><img src="http://www.flickr.com/photos/1288307_d1f97def86_m.jpg" width="290" alt="Shark vertebrae" /></a><br /><br />She directed my attention to a painting I'd seen before, the <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/03/anthony-ordinary.html">St. Vincent polyptych</a>. And sure enough, when I got a closer look at the "Fisherman's panel," second from left, there was Saint Anthony in the front row, holding something very similar. (The photo is still not very clear, for which I apologize: if anyone has a better one, please say so. As always, you can click on the picture to see a larger view.)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4589515188/" title="Detail of St. Antony with fishbone beds from the St. Vincent altarpiece by Nuño Gonsalves"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4589515188_2b95126aa9.jpg" width="290" alt="Detail of St. Antony with fishbone beds from the St. Vincent altarpiece by Nuño Gonsalves" /></a><br /><br />My correspondent in this case was <a href="http://www.shd-archzoo.co.uk/">Dr. Sheila Hamilton-Dyer</a>, and she has been working on a medieval excavation at the Icelandic monastery of Skriðuklaustur, where she has found a number of shark vertebrae in the church. (A paper on the faunal remains from Skriðuklaustur is available as a PDF from the Bibliography page on her website.)<br /><br />Perforated fish vertebrae tentatively identified as rosary beads have been found elsewhere -- for instance, from a 13th or 14th century chapel in Northumberland, and also in Poland. Those bones, however are smaller, and might be from cod or a similar fish.<br /><br />The shark vertebrae Dr. Hamilton-Dyer found were large -- an inch to an inch and a half in diameter -- and several of them showed wear and discoloration around a central hole, something that might have been produced by a cord running through them. Here's the photo she sent (published with her permission):<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4589515462/" title="Shark vertebra from Skriðuklaustur, Iceland, copyright 2009 S. Hamilton-Dyer"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4589515462_02b1c1e071.jpg" width="290" alt="Shark vertebra from Skriðuklaustur, Iceland, copyright 2009 S. Hamilton-Dyer" /></a><br /><br />Her guess was that these vertebrae might be part of a rosary. They are probably too large for a rosary a person would wear, but might be from a large rosary that would be placed on an altar or statue of Our Lady. She wanted to know if I had heard of such a thing -- other than the modern example from eBay -- and I certainly have.<br /><br />One of the first articles I wrote on this blog was called <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2004/10/up-against-wall.html">Up against the Wall</a>, and it was about the very large "wall rosaries" that you sometimes find for sale. The beads on these are an inch or so in diameter, making them far too big to wear or even carry around very easily. Many eBay sellers have no idea what they are. The prices being asked for them can vary from $5 all the way up to $500 -- and since they cost around $40 new, I certainly hope no one is buying them at that price! <br /><br />Wall rosaries are, in fact, not at all rare, although many people have never seen one. In the 1950s and 60s, a lot of Catholics decorated their homes with many religious statues, pictures, and other devotional items like these wall rosaries, as a sign of their faith. This is something you see less of nowadays, perhaps because Catholics today feel less like an embattled minority. Wall rosaries are certainly still being made and sold, however, and at any given time there are at least two or three secondhand ones for sale on eBay. I've been collecting photos of more examples because I'd like to write more about some of the different types. <br /><br />Donating a rosary to decorate a statue or altar within a church is also a very old practice, going back well into the Middle Ages and continuing today. Sometimes you see statues so draped in rosaries and other jewelry that you can barely see their bodies or clothes. Most of the ones I have photos of are ordinary-sized rosaries draped on relatively small statues. But the practice certainly extends to large rosaries draped on large statues as well.<br /><br />I haven't yet seen any other photos of fishbone rosaries, but now I'm on the lookout. The bones are certainly for sale as beads on eBay and elsewhere. Both Dr. Hamilton-Dyer and I will be interested to see if any other fishbone rosaries turn up. Considering that I've seen rosaries made of rocks, sea shells, braided horsehair, plastic dice, and miniature footballs, I'm sure it's only a matter of time.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4588895271/" title="Small fish bone beads for sale"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4588895271_bd1e143c85_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Small fish bone beads for sale" /></a><br /><br />* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<br /><br />On a related note, I also ran across a charming paper by Gary Lane and William Ausich -- paleontologists -- on the legend of St. Cuthbert's beads, published in the journal <i>Folklore</i> in 2001. It came up in an online search because the paper mentions rosaries. <br /><br />Saint Cuthbert (634-687 AD) was one of the famous preacher saints of North Britain, and his official biography was written by the Venerable Bede in the eighth century. The little disks with a hole in the center called "St. Cuthbert's beads" are found on Lindisfarne, where they weather out of limestone and can be picked up in any of the island's quarries. <br /><br />Saint Cuthbert's beads are not fishbones: they are segments of the stems of fossil <a href="http://tolweb.org/Crinoidea">crinoids</a>, animals related to sea urchins. Crinoids are known from as early as 480 million years ago, and a few stalked crinoids have survived to the present day, although they are now found only in deep water. These crinoids stand on long stalks supported by a series of bony disk-shaped segments. They are often called "sea lilies" or "feather stars."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4589515210/" title="Crinoid segments from superpope.blogs.com"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4589515210_d40fccabce_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Crinoid segments from superpope.blogs.com" /></a><br /><br />The earliest literary reference to crinoid stem segments as "St. Cuthbert's beads" is by John Ray in 1671. In all probability the legend dates from centuries later than St. Cuthbert's life, though it might date back as far as the beginnings of limestone quarrying on the island in the 14th century. Nineteenth-century scholars, with their romantic view of folklore and religion, decided that local limestone workers must have believed these "beads" dated from Cuthbert's time and strung them into rosaries -- but disappointingly, there seems to be very little evidence this was actually done. <br /><br />Many of the later references to St. Cuthbert's beads come from Sir Walter Scott's epic poem <i>Marmion</i>, which says:<br /><br /><i>But fain Saint Hilda's nuns would learn <br />If on a rock, by Lindisfarne, <br />St Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame <br />The sea-born beads that bear his name: <br />Such tales had Whitby's fishers told, <br />And said they might his shape behold, <br />And hear his anvil sound; <br />A deadened clang -- a huge dim form, <br />Seen but, and heard, when gathering storm <br />And night were closing round. <br />But this, as tale of idle fame, <br />The nuns of Lindisfarne disclaim (canto 2, verse 16). </i>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-76140676039585699822010-05-05T17:17:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:12.285-08:00The Neville gold rosariesSeveral people alerted me to two gold rosaries that were listed last winter in an upcoming sale at Bonham's auction house -- for which, my thanks. Thanks also to Rachel Osborn-Howard of Bonham's, who gave me permission to write about these and to republish a few of their photos. I also very much appreciate the additional information she was kind enough to provide.<br /><br />Howard Neville was a dealer in early works of art and textiles for forty years, and Bonham's had their first sale of some of his collection this past December. Among the items for sale were two gold rosaries and a gold crucifix, all dated to the 16th or 17th century. Here's the first one:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4427879021/" title="Neville1 by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2733/4427879021_812e19e158_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Neville1" /></a><br /><br />The final version of the description in the sale catalog is: "A 17th century silver-gilt rosary with a Corpus Christi pendant, the Corpus Christi with a plaque above inscribed INRI and with a skull and crossbones below, the rosary chain with circular beads interspersed with flat pierced beads and terminating with a pierced pendant above a single chain of beads with the corpus below, chain possibly later, the cross 7.5cm high, the chain approximately 74cm long."<br /><br />Here's the second one, whose catalog description was: "A 17th century Flemish silver-gilt rosary with a Corpus Christi pendant, the chain applied with segmented beads, the sides decorated with applied circles, chain possibly later, one bead missing, the cross 8.5cm high, the chain 52cm long."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4427879023/" title="Neville2 by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4427879023_a04d83c0a3_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Neville2" /></a><br /><br />There is also a third item from this sale that is just a cross, with a small pendant at the bottom:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4427879025/" title="Neville3 cross by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4427879025_ecdee9aaaa_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Neville3 cross" /></a><br /><br />The fact that these are gold (actually, gilded silver) automatically puts them in the "spectacular" category. For the most part, they are also in excellent condition; the first rosary has only one damaged bead; the second is clearly missing some beads, as there are only 29. The crucifixes show some normal wear, but they too are in excellent shape.<br /><br />As I've said many times before, dating rosaries is always hard. That goes for these too. Hollow gold beads like these have been made for thousands of years, either plain as in the first example, or decorated with bits of added-on wire as in the second. It's virtually impossible to date them by style. <br /><br />Often the best clue we have about the age of a rosary is the artistic style of the cross or medals attached to the beads. The Neville rosaries and crucifix have been looked at by experts who know a whole lot more about art history than I do: they identify the crucifixes as 16th or 17th century Flemish work. <br /><br />When I first saw these, they were described as 16th century. But the longer rosary is made with a chain type of construction, where each bead is on a short length of wire with loops at each end, and the beads are made into a chain by interlocking these loops. This is how almost all rosaries were made in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it's not at all common before 1600. Most rosaries before 1600 were strung on silk thread. (The gold rosary of Mary, Queen of Scots, is an exception, dated to 1587.)<br /><br />It is also uncommon -- though again not unheard of -- to see the cross hanging from a short chain of three "extra" beads. These extra beads were not originally part of the rosary in the Middle Ages. They seem to first appear sometime in the very late 1500s, but they did not really become universal until the 19th century.<br /><br />The second of the Neville rosaries is strung on a fine metal chain. This is also not typical of rosaries from this period, which as far as I know were mostly strung on silk. (I've seen a number of historical rosaries that are now strung on metal chain, but to the best of my knowledge, they have all been re-strung and the chain is modern.) <br /><br />You can see a bit of chain in the second rosary in the very bottom right corner of the first closeup below:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4427879019/" title="N2-closeup by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2786/4427879019_2333a57272_o.jpg" width="290" alt="N2-closeup" /></a><br /><br />And in this not-so-good second closeup:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4575556777/" title="17771-chain by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/4575556777_9a10e1f516_o.jpg" width="290" alt="17771-chain" /></a><br /><br />This second rosary currently has 29 beads and no gauds (marker beads). This too would be unusual for a rosary of this date. While there are some rosaries with 30 beads (plus gauds), the most common number is 50 (plus gauds). Some special types of rosaries have 63, 72 or other numbers, but 50 is overwhelmingly the most common.<br /><br />The chain construction and the three "extra" beads of the first rosary, and the chain "string" of the second rosary, lead me to think that <b>if</b> these are actually more or less intact pieces and haven't been heavily modified, a date in the 17th century is rather more likely than the 16th. As you saw, the catalog description in its final version did agree with that.<br /><br />But you'll notice I said "if."<br /><br />The individual beads in both cases could certainly be 16th or 17th century. But I have to wonder whether some 16th or 17th century crosses and some beads from one or more other sources -- even, perhaps, from other sources of the same date -- might have been combined to make a rosary that looks more complete. <br /><br />This is something that happens all the time, not only to items in private collections, but to items in museums. It is very natural to want to make an item look more complete, perhaps more like what it looked like when new -- especially if you are certain you know what it looked like originally. For rosaries, that very often means arranging the beads in equal-numbered groups (usually 10), with marker beads between each group, something like a flat metal medallion at the joining of the loop, and a short chain of three (sometimes five) beads above the crucifix. Because this construction is so universal in the 19th and 20th centuries, many people assume that this is what all rosaries should look like. As you'll have seen if you've been reading this blog, that's not really true for rosaries before the 19th century.<br /><br />(Today, museums are far more cautious, and are more likely to show a broken or incomplete item in its unrepaired state, perhaps with a separate "reproduction" next to it. But this is a fairly recent trend. Anything that's been in a museum for a few decades is very likely to have been cleaned and restored in ways we might not do today.)<br /><br />Thinking along these lines, I began to wonder particularly about the central medallion on the first set of beads. Here's a closeup.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4427879017/" title="Neville1-closeup by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2714/4427879017_0edb3e5763_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Neville1-closeup" /></a><br /><br />Two things bother me here. (And I'm no jewelry expert, so take my opinion for what it's worth.) One is that a flat medallion at the joining is, as I said, a rather late feature in rosaries; none of the other 16th-17th century rosaries I've seen have a medallion. Either each decade ends with a gaud so there are two gauds side by side when the loop joins, or else both threads are run through a single gaud in this position. I don't know exactly when joining the loop with a flat medallion came into style, but I can't help wondering whether it was in the 19th century. Even the Biedermeyer-style filigree rosaries, which are dated to various points in the 18th and 19th centuries, don't have it.<br /><br />The other thing is that, compared to the workmanship on the rest of the rosary, this medallion is rather crude. A silver-gilt rosary was a piece of fine jewelry, usually made by a goldsmith, and I would really not expect something only approximately symmetrical, and with irregular engraving like this, to be part of it. In fact, I rather wish I knew whether a metallurgic test was done on this medallion, because it looks to me as though it might even be something like a part from a 19th- or early 20th-century brass item from India.<br /><br />I have no doubt that the crucifixes are original and date from when the experts say they date from. But it would have been relatively easy for someone to take some loose beads and put together plausible-looking rosaries to go with two of the crucifixes. <br /><br />I don't know of any evidence this was done, but there's also -- in my admittedly limited experience -- no evidence that would comprehensively rule it out. That would also explain the relatively undamaged condition of these pieces, as well as the style of construction.<br /><br />So while I very much appreciate the chance to see and study these pieces from the Neville collection, I think that considerable doubt must remain about whether they are in their original form, and therefore, about whether they can be relied on to give us significant information about rosaries in the past.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-27792287054193212382010-03-16T11:35:00.000-07:002018-12-20T11:09:11.482-08:00Paternosters: Greatest HitsExcuse the geekery, but I attended a talk on Google Analytics recently, and I've now installed it on this blog. Google Analytics is a free service that can provide some very interesting data on web traffic, even for such a humble blog as this one ;)<br /><br />First, there must be more than seventeen of you out there reading this, since the blog is getting in the range of 100 visitors per day. This is, of course, a very modest number compared to the "super sites" out there, but it seems to be fairly steady over time.<br /><br />Second, it's interesting to see which pages come up as most popular. It looks like a little over half the people that come here do so as the result of a search of some kind, and about 2/3 of those are word searches rather than image searches. The image searchers may or may not be interested in what this blog is actually about, but I'd think the word searchers are more likely to.<br /><br />(By the way, many of my posts have one or more "labels" which are listed at the foot of each post. If you want to see more posts on a particular subject, click on the label.)<br /><br />Overall, the most popular pages seem to be the series of posts I wrote on <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/04/protestants-and-rosary.html">Protestants and the rosary</a>. There are four of these posts and three of them are in the top ten (at least in the small sample I have right now). I've actually noticed before when I look at the "live" feed in the sidebar that these show up rather often.<br /><br />Next most popular, apparently, are people searching on the word "<a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/03/name-of-rosary.html">paternoster</a>." I'm a bit surprised by that, since I wouldn't think the word is all that well known. But perhaps these are people looking for a definition.<br /><br />Third most popular -- again, rather to my surprise -- are the posts I wrote on <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/11/islamic-rosaries.html">Islamic rosaries</a>. This isn't actually something I know a whole lot about, but apparently the dearth of good information in English that I remarked upon when I wrote these posts still continues, since I'm pretty consistently getting several visitors a day looking for this subject. And not a few of them from countries where Islam is the majority religion.<br /><br />Below this, the numbers get too small to really draw much of a conclusion from. I also suspect that there may be "runs" on a specific article for a few days when someone elsewhere on the Web mentions a subject. But here are a few that turn up fairly consistently.<br /><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/08/bean-beads.html">Bean Beads</a>. I suspect these two posts get visitors when someone searches on a specific type of seed (such as spina-christi) or on the words "seed" and "rosary." I wish I had more information on this, because I continue to see seeds that I can't identify used in rosaries, but it's often impossible to tell what they are from a photo.<br /><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-knot.html">Knots</a>. Apparently I'm one of only a few sources out there that say anything about the actual knots used in today's common knotted cord rosaries. I also get visits from people searching for "Franciscan cord knots" which are basically the same knot, at least according to what shows up in historical paintings.<br /><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/01/beads-in-isenheim-altarpiece.html">Saint Anthony</a>. I am not at all sure what people who come here are looking for, but all of the Saint Anthony posts get visits. Some people seem to be searching for Saint Anthony's distinctive <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/02/of-crosses-bells-and-pigs.html">Tau-shaped cross</a>, but others go to other posts in the series and I can't tell why.<br /><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/02/trisagion-rosary.html">Trisagion</a>. Apparently the Trisagion is uncommon and intriguing enough that I'm still on the first page of Google links when people search for either the prayer itself or the Trisagion rosary.<br /><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/02/rosary-for-dead.html">Rosary for the Dead.</a> Again it seems that there's not a lot out there specifically about this devotion. People also come here when they're trying to identify a four-decade rosary (which this is).<br /><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/12/roses-revisited.html">Roses</a>. I'm quite happy to see my posts on rose-petal beads get traffic, because I'm mythbusting here. A lot of people have heard that medieval rosaries were made of rose petals: as far as I have been able to tell, this is simply not true, so I've tried to show how rose petals actually *were* used, which is quite interesting in itself.<br /><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/01/deaths-head-devotions.html">Skulls</a>. There are quite a few posts about this, but the one that I get the most questions about (not just web traffic) is the one about <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/10/place-of-skull.html">skulls on the crucifix of a rosary</a>. Apparently some people are under the impression that only nuns and monks had crosses with a skull at the foot, but actually this is not a rare style and I'm happy to explain it. Also, modern Goth culture has linked skulls and rosaries together in a lot of people's minds, although the actual history doesn't really bear out this connection in the way most people seem to think.<br /><br />Subjects that have had scattered attention in the last few days include <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/08/milagros.html">milagros</a>, <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/01/same-theme-different-beads.html">pro-life rosaries</a>, and <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/01/rosaries-on-belts.html">rosaries on belts</a>. <br /><br />The popularity of some posts is giving me ideas. I'm actually gathering material for a post on the modern "belt rosaries" or "habit rosaries" worn by monks and nuns, because there seems to be a lot of confusion about them. I've also got more information stacked up about various other aspects of Protestant rosaries. Anglican rosaries are pretty well represented on the Web, but there's not a lot out there about Lutheran versions (for instance) and I was surprised to discover there are actually beads used by Unitarians. Then there are the currently popular "story bracelets," where each color or shape of bead stands for a particular quality or incident -- I suspect these have a longer history than one might think.<br /><br />Now the real challenge: to find the time to write!Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-14810473324931971432010-03-03T10:38:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:11.184-08:00Bottoms up!I'm an independent scholar not affiliated with a university, so I'm not always in the mainstream of news about the subjects that I'm interested in. I'm grateful to a member of the <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paternosters">Paternosters Yahoo mailing list</a>, who alerted me to a gorgeous and relatively recent book I hadn't seen: <b>Edelsteine, Himmels Schnüre: Rosenkränze und Gebetsketten</b>, a catalog of a 2004 exhibit at the Dommuseum zu Salzburg (Salzburg Cathedral Museum). The title translates as "Precious Stones, Heaven's Cords: Rosaries and Prayer Beads."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3583039014/" title="Edelsteine by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3600/3583039014_78795c61a3.jpg" width="290" alt="Edelsteine" /></a><br /><br />The extensive collection of beads in this volume is not, however, from the Cathedral's own resources; it's from the Fredy Bühler Collection, a private collection that has also been exhibited elsewhere.<br /><br />I'm planning a more comprehensive review of this book, but I wanted to discuss one point in particular. <br /><br />What I noticed is this: I'm a bit surprised by the way some of their sets of beads have been assembled. Although it doesn't say so in the book (that I could find -- my German is not the best), I would guess that most or all of the sets of beads in the collection have been re-strung at a fairly recent date, so what we are seeing is the collector's view (or perhaps the view of a previous collector or whatever expert was consulted) of what these may have looked like when new.<br /><br />I wanted to single out the "tenners" as a particular example, because there's a very nice picture in the book of a painting that shows something rather different from the tenners in the collection itself.<br /><br />One of the major sources of information about the rosary or paternoster beads of past centuries is their appearance in art of the period. Here, for instance, is Christoph Schurff, painted in 1580 with his beads (and two of his best friends ;).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3720221947/" title="Schurff by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2493/3720221947_86d55de399.jpg" width="290" alt="Schurff" /></a><br /><br />For comparison, here are some of the tenners in the collection:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3720222549/" title="Edelsteine-2 by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2609/3720222549_2092aec292.jpg" width="290" alt="Edelsteine-2" /></a><br /><br />I've seen quite a few other tenners pictured in paintings or engravings. Some have beads all the same size. Others are graduated in size, and in every case I can think of, those in the paintings always have the bigger beads at the bottom. Here's a close-up of the painting above, showing Mr. Schurff's left hand and his beads in more detail:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3720221639/" title="Schurff-detail by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3515/3720221639_2b69dcc7fb.jpg" width="290" alt="Schurff-detail" /></a><br /><br />There are not a lot of surviving tenners from this time period, and the chances are good that the ones I've seen have also been re-strung or reconstructed at some point, so they may not be in their original arrangement. These other surviving tenners too all seem to have the bigger beads at the bottom, including <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/10/beads-of-bishop-jakob.html">Bishop Fugger's ivory beads</a>, which I wrote about awhile back.<br /><br />But every one of the 45 or so tenners in <b>Edelsteine</b> that have beads graduated in size is strung with the biggest beads at the top. <br /><br />What's going on here?<br /><br />We are trying to reconstruct tenners from two sources of information, neither of which is entirely reliable. Images in paintings or engravings are subject to artistic license: the artist may or may not have chosen to show exactly what he saw. There are a number of paintings where it seems likely that the image presented is more symbolic than literal: it is painted as something that tells the viewer "these are rosary beads," but the real beads may have been bigger, smaller or different in number than what shows in the art. <br /><br />And as I've said above, surviving beads, unless they come from a documented archaeological dig (which most do not) have almost certainly been re-strung at least once, and that may or may not be the same way they were strung originally. Unfortunately for us, until fairly recently re-stringing fell into the category of "routine maintenance" and the details of exactly what was done were often not written down.<br /><br />From the evidence of paintings, I would tend to think that tenners with graduated beads are far more likely to have originally had the biggest beads at the bottom. Why are the beads in this collection strung the other way?<br /><br />It's possible that the collector had information I don't. It's also possible that the collector or conservator made a single decision at some point that all of the tenners should be strung in the same way, and that that way should be with the biggest beads at the top. <br /><br /><h2>the book</h2><br />I ordered my copy of this book from <a href="http://www.kirchen.net/dommuseum_en/medienshop_liste.asp?dynKatID=33"> the publishers</a> with a bit of help from people who speak German better than I do. (The book is entirely in German, BTW.) It took about eight weeks to arrive and I think I wound up paying about $75 for it, including shipping.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-85070055927421510292010-02-10T10:03:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:12.463-08:00Pierced pendantsI taught a class on reliquaries not too long ago, and since I'm often interested in making reproductions of medieval or renaissance rosaries, I'm always on the lookout for the sorts of pierced or open-able little containers that are so often seen dangling from 16th century rosaries. In period, some such things were used as relic containers, while others were filled with <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/01/beads-of-nostradamus.html">scented stuff</a> to serve as pomanders.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/2419173961/" title="0110-detail by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2035/2419173961_0fd6a667c7.jpg" width="290" alt="0110-detail" /></a><br /><br />(By the way, as I've told my classes, if you choose to make beads with a "reliquary" pendant for replica purposes you certainly don't have to use an actual saint's relic. I know many modern people are uncomfortable with the concept of religious relics for one reason or another. A personal keepsake, such as a lock of hair, seems to me to be a pretty good substitute.)<br /><br />I've also been corresponding with a couple of jewelry makers who are (FINALLY!) working from period paintings to produce actual replicas of the 1" to 2" pierced pendants visible in paintings. (If any of you are reading this, you're welcome to provide links in the Comments.) Unfortunately for me, while the ones I've seen are quite splendid, most of them are silver or gold and out of my price range at the moment. (I received a very nice little silver egg-shaped pierced pendant as a Twelfth Night gift last year -- thanks again, H.) I can certainly understand why jewelers would go for these, since I think it's the same amount of work to make something in silver or gold as it is to make the same thing in pewter, and I suspect the precious metal version is more profitable.<br /><br />For those of us who do everything in pewter, however, I got a sale catalog from <a href="http://firemountaingems.com">Fire Mountain</a> that contains a couple of candidates for pendants that might be at least <i>plausible</i> for the Middle Ages or Renaissance:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.firemountaingems.com/details.asp?PN=H201352FX">Large pewter "heart" cage (18x18mm) with heart shaped piercings<br /><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4404590298_e2c5e199c0_o.jpg" width="300" height="300" alt="heartpendant1" /></a><br /><br />IMHO, this one isn't as period looking as the smaller one below. I don't recall having seen heart-shaped piercings on any period pieces, but it's certainly a shape that was well known for brooches and other jewelry. Unfortunately the hearts on this one are randomly oriented on the back of the "cage," which is something I wouldn't expect with a medieval esthetic. <br /><br />The small version OTOH (and it's quite small, about 1/2 by 3/4 inch), has round- or scallop-shaped piercings that more or less follow the shape of the object. I haven't seen a medieval heart shape that is quite as short from top to point (compared to the width) as this example -- most of the medieval hearts I've seen are taller and skinnier than modern hearts, if anything -- but I'm a lot less bothered by that.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.firemountaingems.com/details.asp?PN=H201354FX">Small pewter "heart" cage (16x13mm) with round piercings<br /><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4009/4404590334_bb18f436fd_o.jpg" width="300" height="300" alt="heartpendant2" /></a><br /><br />If you do a general search for "cage" on the Fire Mountain site, you'll come up with about 40 links and drops of various sizes. Most of them have wide spaced vertical bars, which makes them easy to insert something into, but not so suitable for most "relics," since whatever is in there has to be fairly large in order to be securely held. They could, however, probably be filled with scented resin or something else that will stay put. Here's a pierced bead from a replica I made that uses a paste of benzoin and gum arabic inside the pierced metal beads. (I chose not to use a wax-based filling, BTW, because I live in California, and I don't want to risk wax melting all over something in the summer!)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/368459630/" title="Compostela-R-detail by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/152/368459630_c366cd1cf3.jpg" width="290" alt="Compostela-R-detail" /></a><br /><br />Awhile back, Fire Mountain was also selling larger, flat cages they were calling "bead keepers" -- hinged containers about an inch and a half across, with woven wire backs and pierced or woven metal fronts. There are round, square and teardrop-shaped versions of these, but the square and teardrop shaped ones look very modern. The <a href="http://www.firemountaingems.com/details.asp?PN=H206057FY">round one</a>, OTOH, has pointed oval and quatrefoil shaped piercings and I think could reasonably pass as a period artifact. I think these are now being discontinued, so if you want one, now's the time to get it. The last I checked, they seem to be out of the silver-plated version but still have the gold-plated one.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.firemountaingems.com/details.asp?PN=H206057FY"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2682/4404601378_0d71f7165f_o.jpg" width="300" height="300" alt="roundcage" /></a>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-81426497933025282042009-12-23T15:19:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:12.403-08:00Christmas blessingsMy "Christmas card" is running a bit late this year, and I had to do some rummaging around to find something I liked, since I've rather neglected this blog and have a couple of hundred pictures in the "To be Filed" folder. <br /><br />Here is a picture of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, which is actually where the Christmas story all began, according to the Christian tradition. This is a tempera painting on wood from about 1460-1470, painted probably in Vienna by the Master of "Maria am Gestade" which translates literally as "Mary of the Shore." While I didn't notice it at first glance, you can indeed make out a bit of a view of water through the side window of this chamber.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4209508817/" title="7002652a by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2596/4209508817_b421f2345e_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Madonna of the Shore" /></a><br /><br />This may not look like a rosary picture at first glance, but a rosary is there, all right. This is one of those tremendously rich little paintings full of details of domestic objects. Look at the cupboard in the top left corner of the painting. There's a rosary hanging over the edge of the shelf:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/4210273550/" title="7000210a by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2618/4210273550_38a4b1ef38_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Detail, Madonna of the Shore" /></a><br /><br />There are also details of <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/qim/7000209.jpg">bottles and jars on a shelf</a>; an <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000211.JPG<br />">elaborate gold cup, book and fruit on a table</a>; and <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000212.JPG">a sewing box, pattens (medieval overshoes) and a vase of flowers on the floor</a>. In many paintings, and probably this one, each of these objects has meaning, expressing the virtues of the Virgin or some aspect of the mystery of the coming of Christ.<br /><br />This is a very graceful painting: the angel on the left, earnestly pointing toward heaven: God the Father hovering outside the window, sending the Dove of the Holy Spirit winging toward Mary, who has turned away from her book to say her Yes to the angel. That appears to be Joseph sitting on a bench in the garden, half asleep and leaning on his staff.<br /><br />By the way, if you'll look closely, you can see that the photos bear a copyright notice: I got them from <a href="http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/realonline/">REALonline</a>, the photo index from Austria (which I talked about <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/08/more-photos-realonline.html">here</a>). I go back there every so often just to see whether there's something new, and often there is.<br /><br />But I'm done with research for the day now, and I have Christmas presents to finish.<br /><br />May the blessings of Christmas be with you, and may we all be open to hear the message of peace, now and at every season.<br /><br /><h2>previous christmas cards:</h2><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-blessings.html">Christmas 2008</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2007/12/blessed-christmas.html">Christmas 2007</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-blessings.html">Christmas 2006</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/12/blessed-christmas-to-all.html">Christmas 2005</a>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-42393195289018377362009-07-09T14:03:00.001-07:002018-12-20T11:09:11.690-08:00A new look...While this is not the Project That Ate My Life that I mentioned in the last post, it <i>is</i> one of the things I've been working on in the background:<br /><br /><a href="http://paternoster-row.org"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2559/3705455146_d74494c7b6.jpg" width="290" alt="PNwebshot" /></a><br /><br />The <a href="http://paternoster-row.org">Paternoster-Row.org website</a>, with all the introductory information on rosary and paternoster beads, has a new hosting site and a new look. <br /><br />It was high time for a design update anyway, and the new site is going to make it lots easier for me to add new pages -- and eventually, to move this blog over there as well. Once I do that, I will no longer have to give people two web addresses: one address will get you to both. (Don't worry, this address for the blog will still work, too.) <br /><br />Hopefully that will make it easier for people to both find the basic information <i>and</i> keep up with my new articles.<br /><br />All that's missing on the new site so far is the Gallery page with links to some of the rosaries I've made for my teaching collection. The Gallery will be back as soon as I figure out how to do it under the new system. (For the Web-savvy, the site now uses Drupal.)<br /><br />As always, comments are welcome, though I may not publish all of them. You can also e-mail me directly with comments through my profile page.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-25837584565619711712009-02-13T10:16:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:11.423-08:00Rosary or not: the people factor<h2>part 3 of a series</h2><br />The first essential of doing research on rosaries and paternosters is to be able to identify paternoster beads when we see them. This is especially important when we are looking at medieval paintings, prints, or statues; does a string of beads represent a rosary, or is it simply decorative?<br /><br /><i>(I have contemplated this question before: see parts 1 and 2 below. I'm gathering these into a series now because I have several more aspects I'd like to write about.)</i><br /><br />There are several sets of possible clues. One is how people are interacting with the beads -- how and where they are being worn or held. <br /><br />For instance, common sense suggests that a loop of beads held in the hands or hanging from an elbow is likely to represent prayer beads, and much less likely to be a belt or a necklace. Here's Prince Friedrich the Wise holding his beads.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3284782/" title="Friedrich by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3/3284782_21bfb5b397.jpg" width="290" alt="Friedrich" /></a><br /><br />(I wrote about these beads <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/01/praying-on-almost-all-cylinders.html">here</a>.)<br /><br />A person holding beads <i>and</i> kneeling, or putting their hands together in a "prayer" pose, is especially likely to be using them to pray with. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3277108722/" title="Small donors on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3319/3277108722_bd0ce3ed4e_o.jpg" width="290" alt="Small donors" /></a><br /><br />(Another example <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7000404.JPG">here</a>)<br /><br />Beads <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/01/rosaries-on-belts.html">attached to a belt</a> are also very likely to represent a paternoster or rosary. Beads <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/01/loops-drapes-and-dangles.html">hanging from a brooch</a>, pinned to a garment, or <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/12/if-youve-got-it-flaunt-it.html">wrapped around a wrist</a> are also likely to represent a rosary. <br /><br />Then there are a few odd cases. Probably my favorite is the gentleman on the far right in <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/3000507.JPG">The Judgement of Daniel</a> (detail below), a panel painting by the Master of Mariapfarr from Salzburg in about 1500.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3276298303/" title="Rosary scabbard on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3300/3276298303_f6baf83501.jpg" width="290" alt="Rosary scabbard" /></a><br /><br />I've always wondered whether his beads would go flying if he tried to draw his sword in a hurry. Now that I'm taking a closer look, though, the beads are below the sword's crossguard and are only looped around the scabbard; he'd probably be all right. There's another gentleman with his beads attached almost the same way <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7014815.JPG">here</a>.<br /><br />Rosaries worn around the neck are especially problematical. Today it's usually considered "sacrilegious" (at least in English-speaking cultures) to wear a rosary around your neck. I can't tell you how many people have told me that their Catholic grandmothers were horrified at the idea! But apparently in the Middle Ages and Renaissance it was more common, though I'm told it was still frowned upon by some. (I've written about this <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/01/ring-around-collar.html">here</a>.)<br /><br />The problem is how to tell the difference between a rosary worn around the neck and a decorative necklace. This takes some serious digging through paintings and portraits of whatever period you're interested in. Necklaces and other secular jewelry made from strings of beads haven't always been the fashion in all centuries or all cultures. There are eras where people simply didn't wear them. <br /><br />I hope to write more about this later. But to try to answer the question for 15th and 16th century fashion at least, I've started to collect portraits from that period of people wearing something that's clearly a necklace. I want to see what the similarities and differences are. Many of the necklaces made of beads seem to be very short, just at the base of the neck (like what used to be called a "choker").<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3276289133/" title="Sassetti on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3304/3276289133_2382669558.jpg" width="290" alt="Sassetti" /></a><br /><br />I also have to mention the woodcut of a friar with "flying" beads <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/90426923">here</a>. <br /><br />The Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus are something of a special case. It is quite common to see the Infant Jesus playing with a string of beads, which the Virgin is often (but not always) wearing around her neck. In most of the cases I've seen, I do think these are rosary beads.<br /><br />However, a <i>short</i> string of plain red beads worn around the Infant Jesus' neck -- especially if there is a little branch-like thing hanging from it -- is more likely to represent the sort of coral necklace that was often given to babies because it was thought to avert the "evil eye." Compare the one shown toward the end of <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/11/when-rosaries-are-red.html">this article</a> (which I'm sure is a necklace) to <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7004075.JPG">this one</a> (which I think is a rosary). And just this week I found an image that has both! This is the Virgin and Child with St. Wolfgang of Ratisbon, a votive picture commissioned about 1490 by Mathias Hierssegker in Austria.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3277177160/" title="Virgin & child with St. Wolfgang of Ratisbon, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3329/3277177160_6143c68265.jpg" width="290" alt="Virgin & child with St. Wolfgang of Ratisbon" /></a><br /><br />Lastly, while I can't point to any examples at the moment, I'd like to investigate the pictures I've seen of women wearing a girdle (i.e. a belt) around their waists which is composed of beads. I am operating mostly on logic rather than data here, but I very much doubt these are rosaries. First, I've never seen one that had any of the "key" characteristics that signal unmistakably "this is a rosary" (more about this another time). Second, to use such a rosary to pray with, you'd have to unhook it from around your waist: I would think that taking off your belt would qualify as "undressing", which a lady would never do in public. <br /><br />But of course I could be wrong about that ;) I've been wrong before.<br /><br />If you want to test your powers of detection, take a look at these links. <br />· <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/15989842/">German couple holding beads</a>.<br />· I think <a href="http://www.wga.hu/art/m/master/zunk_fl/15_paint/2/03gudulf.jpg/" >this lady</a> has one set of beads tucked into the front of her belt and is holding another in her hands (closeup <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/86215969/">here</a>).<br />· Saint Joseph (far left, in yellow) has beads tucked into his belt <a href="http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7013912.JPG">here.</a> <br />· <a href="http://image.kikirpa.be/img/Z/0/1/z011991_std.jpg">Charles the Good, Count of Flanders</a>, in a 1400s portrait.<br /><br />I think these are all rosaries or paternosters. Do you agree?<br /><h2>Previous posts in this series:</h2><br />Part 1: <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/08/rosary-or-not.html">Rosary or not?</a><br />Part 2: <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2005/08/from-spanish-galleon.html">From a Spanish galleon</a>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-35024780630184114962009-02-04T11:00:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:11.541-08:00The Trisagion rosaryHere is a rosary many people have never heard of: the Trinitarian or Trisagion rosary. It is quite different from the common modern rosary, and uses a different set of prayers. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir3Rlg7QKEez77hIeNehooirvUJSx-cURGcugZyZKCtWLWQPajGxJVqGvx7KizTyvH6enJS_QH_0xhYaJ2WgKx9vsG12o4TptZ-kdbTRrvYfXwFYjjjQ6LaWOGlTaBk9-5s5WB/s1600-h/Trinitarian.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 110px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir3Rlg7QKEez77hIeNehooirvUJSx-cURGcugZyZKCtWLWQPajGxJVqGvx7KizTyvH6enJS_QH_0xhYaJ2WgKx9vsG12o4TptZ-kdbTRrvYfXwFYjjjQ6LaWOGlTaBk9-5s5WB/s200/Trinitarian.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298735470468646578" /></a><br /><br />The <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15045d.htm">Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives</a> was founded in France in 1198. Their Rule originally required that one-third of their total income be devoted to purchasing the freedom of Christian captives who had fallen into the hands of slavers or pirates. (More information <a href="http://www.trinitarians.org/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.trinitari.org/Home%20Inglese%20News.htm">here</a>.)<br /><br />From an early date, the Trinitarians have used a form of prayer based on the <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01211b.htm"><i>Trisagion</i></a> (sometimes <i>Trisagium</i> or <i>Triagion</i>, from the Greek “three” + ”holy”). This is a Byzantine prayer in praise of the Holy Trinity: its simplest form is “Holy God, Holy Strong One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.” <br /><br />The Trisagion rosary (usually called a chaplet) has three groups of nine beads. In reciting the chaplet, each group is preceded by the Trisagion and the Pater Noster. A special prayer is said on each of the nine beads: “To you be praise, glory, and thanksgiving for ever, blessed Trinity. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might; heaven and earth are full of your glory.” Each group of nine prayers is followed by a Gloria Patri ("Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit..."), and the whole ends with a closing prayer.<br /><br />As with other rosaries that are special to a particular religious Order, its history is rather cloudy. The first question is how long the Trinitarians have used the Trisagion and its associated prayers. The prayers themselves are quite old, and may well have come to the Trinitarians from Byzantium through their connections in the Middle East. The Trisagion itself can be traced at least as far back as the Council of Chalcedon(451 AD) and perhaps further. The use of these particular prayers by the Trinitarians may very well date back to the beginnings of the Order.<br /><br />A separate question is when <b>beads</b> began to be used to count these prayers. Reciting a certain number of prayers does not necessarily imply the presence of beads -- prayers can be counted on one's fingers, by moving a peg from one hole to another, and so forth. One possibility, and the one I'd favor as the most likely time for beads to be introduced, might be the 14th or 15th century -- when other rosaries became popular, suggesting the concept of using beads as counters. Another possibility is the 19th or early 20th century, when rosaries of all kinds became an indispensable center of prayer life for many Catholics. <br /><br />It's clear that the Trisagion rosary is not closely related to any of the common Western European forms. But while the prayers may have come from Byzantium, I am inclined to think that the Trisagion rosary in its current form is not very closely related to Eastern Christian rosaries either.<br /><br />The Eastern rosary does not have the same connection to the 150 psalms as its Western cousin, but rather looks to the injunction of Jesus to “pray without ceasing.” The prayer used for the Eastern rosary is most often the “Jesus prayer.” It may be said in longer and shorter forms, a common short form being, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” The number of prayers is most often 99 or 100 (sometimes 101 or 103). <br /><br />The physical form of the Eastern rosary (Orthodox and Byzantine traditions) seems more often to be knots in a string, rather than beads. While some Eastern rosaries today are made with beads, others are still knotted, sometimes using special knots with symbolic significance. In the East, the rosary is also more of a monastic practice; it doesn't seem to have experienced any great surge in popularity among lay people (unlike the Western forms).<br /><br />The Trisagion chaplet is unique, and unlike both the traditional Eastern and Western rosaries in almost every respect. Today it is rather uncommon to see a set of Trisagion beads, but they do turn up on eBay and are featured by some artisan rosary makers. <br /><br />Or, of course, anyone can make their own ;)<br /><br /><b>ETA:</b> I've been asked for a complete set of the Trisagion prayers used with these beads. The most complete version I've found is <a href="http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=1137">here</a>.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-9479082340439394342009-01-29T13:30:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:12.581-08:00Same theme, different beads<h2>New rosaries part 2</h2><br />As I mentioned <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-rosaries.html">earlier</a>, it has been interesting to look at the invention of some "new" rosaries and what they say about rosary history.<br /><br />I have another, and rather different, example, on the "pro-life" theme. This is a rosary sold by Holy Love Ministries, started by a woman in Ohio who believes she has received visions of Jesus and Mary.<br /><br />"New" rosaries (sometimes called chaplets) have originated in a variety of ways over time. Many, such as the mid-1800s <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/02/rosary-for-dead.html">Rosary for the Dead</a> <i>(invented by Abbé Serre of Nismes, France)</i> or the <a href="http://reviews.ebay.com/Chaplet-of-the-Precious-Blood_W0QQugidZ10000000008083437">Chaplet of the Precious Blood</a> <i>(Fr. Francesco Albertini, 1809)</i>, were the idea of a particular person. Quite typically the inventors were priests or spiritual directors who developed ideas that they thought would help people in their parishes or under their direction.<br /><br />Other rosaries, such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Mercy_Chaplet">Rosary of Divine Mercy</a> <i>(Saint Faustina Kowalska, 1930s)</i> or the <a href="http://childrenofthetears.blogspot.com/2008/02/chaplet-of-tears-novena.html">Chaplet of Tears</a> <i>(a Sr. Amalia from Campina, Brazil, 1929)</i>, were founded by someone who believed they had a vision. <br /><br />Visions are a touchy subject. They don't fit into modern society very well, so people who have visions tend to be dismissed as either holy or crazy (or both! ;). At the same time, vision and miracle stories are tremendously popular with the public, which from the Church's point of view doesn't help the situation. <br /><br />Historically the Catholic Church has been cautious. Catholics are not <b>required</b> to believe in any particular vision, even the ones that have Church approval (although the Church teaches it's wrong to believe visions from God are impossible). Nevertheless, it's quite clear, and well understood by the Church, that not all visions are from God. Some are the products of imagination, wishful thinking, or psychological problems. The Church teaches that Satan can also produce convincing -- but fake -- visions. <br /><br />Generally, the Church deals with visions according to guidelines laid down in the 18th century by Pope Benedict the Fourteenth (1740-1758). The first investigation of visions is usually the responsibility of the local bishop. If he is convinced a vision is "worthy of belief" he submits a report to the Vatican for approval. As you can see <a href="http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/unapproved_apparitions/index.html">here</a>, most visions are, in fact, <b>not</b> approved, and some are specifically <i>dis</i>approved. In the majority of cases, however, there is simply no decision yet. This "wait and see" period can be quite long.<br /><br />The pro-life rosary sold by Holy Love Ministries -- called the "Rosary of the Unborn(tm)" -- is another example of a rosary inspired by a vision. Maureen Sweeney-Kyle writes that the Virgin Mary appeared to her, showed her a special rosary, and requested that Holy Love Ministries produce this rosary for the world. She also says that Mary promised that "each 'Hail Mary' prayed on this rosary from a loving heart will rescue one of these innocent lives from death by abortion." (And other promises <a href="http://www.rosaryoftheunborn.com/about.shtml">here</a>)<br /><br />The beads are an unusual design. The Ave beads (on which one says the "Hail Mary") are transparent blue teardrop shapes. Visible inside each one is a small flesh-colored embryo. The Our Father beads are crosses, each made out of four red teardrop shapes that represent drops of blood. Enthusiasts of this rosary find these beads beautiful and moving. People who don't share this viewpoint can have very different reactions. (Pictures <a href="http://www.rosaryoftheunborn.com/order.shtml">here</a>.)<br /><br />This example of a "new rosary" comes from a vision on which the <a href="http://www.dioceseofcleveland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1152:decree-holy-love-ministries-decreto-ministerios-del-santo-amor&catid=1:latest&Itemid=534">Bishop of Cleveland</a> has now issued a statement, saying that the visions are not supernatural in origin. <i>(Thanks to correspondent JH for the update on this.)</i><br /><br />And there have certainly been <a href="http://catholicplanet.com/apparitions/false03.htm">other critics</a> (another <a href="http://www.apparitionsites.com/apparition-sites/holy-love-ministries-maureen-sweeney-kyle.htm">here</a>). Some of the contents of the messages Maureen Sweeney-Kyle reports and publishes do seem more than a bit strange.<br /><br />Another source of unease among those who have commented about this rosary is the very tight hold the ministry maintains on everything related to this rosary. The name "Rosary of the Unborn" is trademarked and its designs are all copyrighted. The rosaries cannot be bought from anyone else -- all sales are direct. (Prices are comparable to more ordinary rosaries.) No one can buy the beads separately to make their own rosary: only finished rosaries are sold. And the ministry says that Mary's promises apply only to these particular rosaries, bought from them.<br /><br />From a commercial point of view, close protection of a design is not unusual. The designs used are very distinctive, and I suspect that the "teardrop" beads especially were a bit difficult to engineer. Maintaining a monopoly on their product also ensures that any money raised goes only to Holy Love Ministries.<br /><br />But on a rosary makers' mailing list a year or two ago one person very reasonably (I thought) asked, "... if this rosary can save so many unborn children and help end abortion, then wouldn't Our Lady want as many of them out there as possible?" <br /><br />This is not the only distinctive rosary resulting from a vision. (In fact I talked about another one <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2006/10/woodcarver-at-work.html">here</a>.) These rosaries are created not by Church authorities, but by ordinary lay people. Rosaries have a long history of being a very "grass roots" form of prayer.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-46214026863439105422009-01-26T13:00:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:11.778-08:00New rosariesI'm a bit behind the calendar here, but Catholics in many places in the last week or two were holding events to commemorate the Roe vs. Wade court decision on January 22nd, 1973. Many of these used the "Pro-life rosary" as their theme.<br /><br />Whatever your opinion on this issue(and I'm not going to get into that <i><b>at all</b></i>), I find it interesting that "pro-life rosaries" have appeared. One of the things I've said repeatedly about rosaries is that there is not, and never in its history has been, only one "true" rosary. In the 1200s to mid-1400s (and perhaps earlier), there were many devotions that used beads, and out of those many (which I think of as the "primordial soup" ;) a very few of the variations (and one especially) arose, became popular, were endorsed by the Church, and have endured. Many other "rosaries" have been invented since, some using the same five decades as the common rosary of today and some not.<br /><br />The best-known of the Pro-life-themed rosaries originated with an idea that came to a nursing student in Louisiana at the end of 1992. In basic form, it's a modern five-decade rosary, but it's quite easy to recognize when you see one because it uses a special pattern of colors in its beads. The crucifix can be any type, but the three Hail Mary beads between the loop and the crucifix are purple. The five decades are each made up of alternating colored and white beads: the first decade aqua and white; the second red and white; the third black and white; the fourth has three colors (red, white and blue); and the fifth, green and white. The marker beads (or Our Father beads) usually seem to be white or clear. These rosaries are still being made and distributed on a fairly large scale from the Office of Pro-Life Issues in the diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana. (Hmm. I should add one to my teaching collection.) And as far as I know, anyone is welcome to make rosaries according to this pattern: most of the rosaries given out from Lafayette are made by volunteers and donated. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3229806510/" title="PL-diagram by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/3229806510_5427cff2bf.jpg" width="290" alt="PL-diagram" /></a><br /><br />The basic prayers of this rosary are the same as the common rosary of the 20th century: the Apostles' Creed, fifty Hail Marys, five Our Fathers and Glorias. The <b>themes</b> of each decade in the Pro-life rosary, on the other hand, may or may not be the usual Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious or Luminous "Mysteries." At least three different sets of special themes and meditations have been written for each decade of the Pro-life rosary, usually with an additional prayer on that theme to be said at the end of the decade. The ones I've found online are <a href="http://www.premier.net/~avemarie/pro-life.htm">here</a>, <a href="http://www.priestsforlife.org/prayers/Rosary.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.hli.org/rosary/introduction.html">here.</a><br /><br />This is an excellent example of a "new rosary." Like most of the recent ones whose history is clear, it began as one person's idea, was endorsed by local Church authorities (the local bishop in this case), and became popular. (The common 20th century rosary came about in the mid-1400s in a similar way, as a local idea that spread. An amazing 100,000 people from all over Europe joined rosary guilds in just the seven years from 1475 to 1481.)<br /><br />Another interesting thing is that both the common rosary and this one have benefited greatly from widespread literacy. Of course, once you have memorized three prayers and fifteen mystery titles, reciting the common rosary does not require a book -- that's one of its attractions for 15th century lay people. But from the very beginning, many rosary leaflets and handbooks have been published to encourage its use. Probably the most popular of the early rosary manuals was <i>Unser Lieben Frauen Psalter</i> (Our Dear Lady’s Psalter), attributed to Alanus de Rupe. Revised and reprinted many times by his followers, it went through seven editions between 1483 and 1502. In a similar way, the Pro-life rosary has spread through printed prayer cards and the Internet, as well as by word of mouth, public events, newspaper stories, and gifts of a Pro-life rosary from one friend to another.<br /><br />A lot of people -- including some Catholics -- have an image of Roman Catholicism as an entirely "top-down" organization. But the constant invention and spread of new rosaries, I think, demonstrates that "grassroots" Catholicism is alive and thriving.Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8590607.post-55065282540969130122009-01-20T16:25:00.000-08:002018-12-20T11:09:11.897-08:00The beads of Nostradamus<h2>roses revisited, part 3</h2><br />As I mentioned in <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/12/roses-revisited.html">Part 1</a>, the first of Nostradamus’ two recipes (Chapter X of the book) produces an intensely scented rose extract or oil. Now we'll look at his second recipe (Chapter XI), which is for making <i>pommes de senteur</i> (literally “scented apples,” meaning pomanders) out of a whole list of things compounded together, of which the rose extract is only one. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3180094101/" title="Apothecary monk, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3262/3180094101_825ba67086.jpg" width="290" alt="Apothecary monk" /></a><br /><BLOCKQUOTE><i>Autre annotation pour composer pommes de senteur. Recipe Ladani purissimi z.ij. Storacis calamitici, Assae odoriferae, que nous appelons benioin Ann. z.i. Tricos de roses z.s. Pouldre de violete z.ij. Ambre & musc de chascun demy drachme. puis le tout soit pulverisé & pasté avec la surdite mixtion de roses: & soit faite paste fort malaxee par l’espace d’une heure: & aves d’une pomme de la plus souveraine senteur, & la plus durable qui se puisse faire au monde:</i></BLOCKQUOTE><br />Here’s my best guess at a translation:<br /><BLOCKQUOTE><i>Another method for making aromatic balls: Take two ounces of the purest labdanum, an ounce each of Styrax calamites and Assae odoriferae (which we call benzoin), half an ounce of rose-tablets, one ounce of violet powder, and half a dram each of amber [ambergris?] and musk. Grind it all into a powder, knead it together with the rose-mixture mentioned earlier [i.e. the rose extract from the first recipe] for the space of an hour and you will have an aromatic ball of the most supreme perfume, and the longest-lasting that can be made anywhere in the world. </i></BLOCKQUOTE><br />(By the way, these do <i>not</i> have opium in them! The ingredient mentioned is “labdanum” (note the B) not “laudanum”!)<br /><br />So what we have here is about four ounces of ground-up plant resins (labdanum, benzoin and storax), an ounce and a half of powdered dry ingredients (rose tablets and violet powder), half a dram each of ambergris (or a substitute) and musk (both these last are waxy animal products), and an unknown quantity of rose extract.<br /><br />There are some surviving objects from the Renaissance with a composition like this, or at least I think that's what they might be: there are a couple of small bear sculptures and a carved pendant from the 16th century that are said to be composed of “musk or ambergris,” though apparently they haven’t been analyzed in detail. I’d be unsurprised to find them composed of something similar to this recipe; I’d think pure musk or pure ambergris would be too soft as well as too expensive. (The resins were expensive, but both musk and ambergris were worth at least twice their weight in gold.)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/3180094069/" title="Alembics by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3334/3180094069_2bdcd67fc7.jpg" width="290" alt="Alembics" /></a><br /><br />What was Nostradamus' second recipe used for? And why does it say it makes "paternosters"?<br /><br />Obviously the main purpose of compounds like this is to give off a pleasant scent. Many of the similar recipes I've looked at recommend leaving these scented balls or cakes in a dish on a table to scent a room, rather like potpourri. The same use is also prescribed for pastilles like the ones discussed in <a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/01/rose-pastilles.html">Part 2.</a><br /><br />The same formulas are also recommended for burning like incense, which also makes sense. I certainly don't see any ingredients in them that would <i>not</i> burn, given a little encouragement.<br /><br />Scented balls, or sometimes the paste before it hardened, could also be used to fill pierced metal or filigree containers, such as the pomanders that survive from this period in museum collections, or those seen in paintings (for instance, something like this, where a pomander is clearly part of a rosary:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/2419173961/" title="0110-detail by ChrisLaning, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2035/2419173961_0fd6a667c7.jpg" width="290" alt="0110-detail" /></a><br /><br />And finally, beads. I think when M. de Nostradame says his recipe is for making "patinostres" he means beads: by the 16th century, a single bead could be referred to as "a paternoster," as well as the whole string.<br /><br />There are a number of references to scented paternoster beads in period documents. Some of these are clearly pierced metal or filigree beads with scented stuff inside. (I am much indebted to R. Lightbown's chapter on paternoster beads in <b>Medieval European Jewellery</b>, which lists a number of these.) For instance, young Marie de France in 1377 had a paternoster of gold beads "filled with amber," probably real or imitation ambergris. Her father Charles V in 1380 had certain beads "full of musk" and in 1386 King Charles the Bold of Navarre paid for <i>botones</i>, probably paternoster beads, of gold and silver "that if pierced may be used for filling with musk." <br /><br />Then we get to references that are harder to interpret. In 1300, Constance of Sicily, queen of Aragon, had a paternoster with "some beads of gold, pierced, and some of labdanum." In 1432 King René of Anjou had a paternoster with beads "of musk". The first of these especially suggests -- but doesn't prove -- that the labdanum was <i>not</i> inside a pierced gold bead, but perhaps was a solid bead by itself. <br /><br />There is also a recipe from more than 100 years later that reads as follows (from From Mary Doggett, Her Book of Recipes, 1682): <br /><BLOCKQUOTE><i>Take a quarter of an ounce of civit, a quarter and a half-quarter of an ounce of Ambergreese, not a half a quarter of an ounce of ye spiritt of Roses, 7 ounces of Benjamin </i>[benzoin]<i>, almost a pound of Damask Rose buds cut. Lay gumdragon </i>[gum tragacanth]<i>in rose water and with it make your pomander, with beads big as nutmegs and color them with Lamb black</i>[lampblack]<i>; when you make them up wash your hands with oyle of Jasmin to smooth them, then make them have a gloss, this quantity will make seaven Bracelets.</i></BLOCKQUOTE> <br />But while this, unlike Nostradamus, produces something that does have quite a lot of rose petals in it, it also has quite a lot of benzoin. And it is not a medieval or even a Renaissance recipe. And beads (if that's what they are) "as big as nutmegs" would be at least an inch in diameter, which to me makes it much more plausible to think in terms (again) of a bracelet with a single pomander hanging from it, rather than an entire bracelet of beads that big. (Though I could, of course, be quite wrong here -- any late 17th-century costumers may feel free to correct me ;)<br /><br />So does Nostradamus' second recipe make beads? It very well could.<br /><br />But is it evidence for medieval beads made from rose petals? I don't think so. We have evidence of Renaissance-era beads made from a lot of plant resins, a small amount of dried and powdered flower petals, and a rose extract. They are fascinating -- but I, at least, would not call those "rose petal beads."<br /><br /><h2>All posts in this series:</h2><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2008/12/roses-revisited.html">Part 1: Roses revisited</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/01/rose-pastilles.html">Part 2: Rose pastilles</a><br /><a href="http://paternosters.blogspot.com/2009/01/beads-of-nostradamus.html">Part 3: The beads of Nostradamus</a><br /><br /><i>(P.S. This series took me a long time to write because I kept getting distracted by fascinating sidetracks: for instance, did you know labdanum was collected by clipping the beards of goats who had been grazing on the plant?)</i>Chris Laninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07574568785133002628noreply@blogger.com