What did Margaret mean?

I'm always grateful for all the blessed souls who have painstakingly typed (or scanned and proofread) long medieval manuscripts so they are available -- and searchable! -- on the Internet.

I recently had occasion to look at the Paston Letters, a famous series of letters and documents from a family of English gentry in the mid to late fifteenth century (1400s). They provide quite a bit of insight into the realities of everyday life for a moderately wealthy family of the period. I'd seen something quoted in translation, and I wanted to see what the original text said.

As usual, I was looking for mentions of prayer beads. At this period, the word "beads" by itself with no qualifiers almost always refers to prayer beads. Once you figure out that "bedys" and "bedes" usually mean "beads", it's fairly easy to do a text search for them and see in what contexts beads are mentioned. I found a couple of citations that were pretty much what I expected, and one that was a surprise. (The search also turned up a few references to "bedes/beddes" that were clearly beds, along with a couple of "fetherbeddes" -- the vagaries of text search and English spelling.)

Here's the surprising one. It's from a 1453 letter by Margaret Paston, the mother of the family, to her husband who is away in London. I love this language, so I'll reproduce as much of this as I have room for.

On the text: The spelling of this period is usually pretty easy to decipher if you try reading the text aloud -- these words may not look like the ones we know, but they do sound like them. The original also spells the word her as "here," which I find entirely too confusing, especially since the word here is spelled identically. I've taken the e's off the ones that mean "her." And I've translated a few things [in brackets].



Right wurshippfull hosbond, I recommand me to yow [you], praying yow to wete ["wit", i.e. to know] that þe [the] man of Knapton þat owyth yow mony [oweth you money] sent me this weke xxxix s. viij d.; and as for þe remenant of þe mony, he hath promysid to bring itt at Wytsontyd [Whitsuntide, i.e. around Pentecost Sunday]. And as for þe prest [the priest], Howardys sone, he yede [went] to Canbryge þe last weke and he shall nomore come hom tyll itt be mydsomer [Midsummer], and therfore I myght not [i.e. could not] do yowr erunde [errand].

As for tydyngys, þe Quene come in-to þis town on Tewysday last past after none [last Tuesday afternoon] and abode here tyll itt was Thursday iij after none, and she sent after my cosyn Elysabeth Clere be [i.e. "at"] Sharynborn to come to her. And she durst not dysabey [disobey] her commandment, and come to her. And when she come in þe Quenys presens þe Quene made ryght meche [much] of her, and desyrid her to have an hosbond, þe which ye shall know of here-after; but as for that, he is non nerrere [no nearer] than he was before. The Quene was right well pleasid wyth her answere, and reportyht of her in þe best wyse, and seyth be her trowth ["by her troth", an exclamation] she sey [saw] no jantylwomman [gentlewoman] syn [since] she come into Norffolk þat she lykyth better þan she doth her...

I pray yow þat ye woll do yowr cost ["do your cost" i.e. spend some money] on me ayens Witsontyd ["against," i.e. before, Whitsuntide], þat I may haue somme thyng for my nekke [neck]. When þe Quene was here I borowd my cosyn Elysabet Cleres devys ["device," i.e. probably an enameled necklace or pendant], for I durst [dared] not for shame go wyth my bedys [with my beads] among so many fresch jantylwomman as here were at þat tym. The blissid Trinyté have yow in his kepyng. Wretyn [written] at Norwych on þe Fryday next before Seynt George. Be yowrys [yours], M. Paston.

Clearly, she is thinking of her paternoster beads here simply as an item of personal jewelry. Displaying her wealth and good taste in the Queen's company, including being well dressed and appropriately jeweled, is simply what she owes to her station in life. She concludes that if she is going to be in the royal presence again, she needs more jewelry.

But what I find most interesting about this is that she mentions needing "something for my neck" in one breath, and in the next, says she felt ashamed to go before the Queen with only her "beads." This clearly implies (though it doesn't prove) that she was wearing her paternoster beads around her neck. Is that what she meant?

Today wearing a rosary around your neck is regarded as irreverent -- which is probably why some modern entertainers do it. But in the 15th and 16th centuries, it was apparently fairly common. I've mentioned some examples in an earlier article here.

I'm told it was a practice that was discouraged at the time, but I still haven't found any reference saying so. If anyone has more specifics on this, I'd love to hear them.

(Footnote: the portrait I've reproduced above is not Margaret Paston; I haven't found any surviving portraits from the family. And it's about a generation later. But it fits my image of her perfectly. It's actually a portrait of an unknown woman from the early 1500s, probably painted by Jacobsz Dirk, and is in the Musée de Beaux-Arts in Lille, France.)

(to be continued)

Just hanging around...

Wearing rosaries, part 6

Last month I began writing a series of articles about how to wear a rosary or paternoster with medieval clothing. As I mentioned toward the end of that series, I have a few more notes and pictures that there simply wasn't room for in that month's postings.

First, a note that while you don't have to be the Virgin Mary or the Infant Jesus to wear a rosary around your neck, it sure helps. The overwhelming majority of pictures showing a rosary as a necklace are of one or the other of these two figures. An example:



This is a detail of the famous altarpiece of the Rosary Society from the Church of St. Andreas, in Köln (Cologne, Germany), by the Master of St. Severin, painted around 1510.

Showing the Infant Jesus playing with his mother's beads is a fairly obvious, and no doubt affectionate, gesture for anyone who's ever observed how much babies love to play with things like this :)

I had some examples of different ways rosaries could be carried on a belt, and I've found a couple of better examples. Here is a rather clearer example of a rosary looped over the belt and then passed through a loop of itself:



This is a detail of Saint Anne (mother of the Virgin Mary) about to meet her returning husband at the "Golden Gate" of Jerusalem. It's an Italian painting from the South Tyrol, painted about 1514 by an unknown artist.

Next, a relatively clear picture of a rosary just tucked into a belt and dangling:



This is from a portrait of a pilgrim saint named Wendelin, again by an anonymous artist, this time from Austria and painted around 1490-1500 for the Salzburg Castle chapel (if I'm decoding the German description correctly).

You can see the entire portrait here, a closeup of his shoes here, and his dog here. Clearly he considers his dog is part of the essential pilgrim's equipment, along with his hat and staff!

Finally, yet another detail from a portrait full of intriguing women that I've mentioned before. Here is a woman carrying what is usually a man's type of rosary, a straight string of beads with tassels at both ends. This is only the second time I've seen this type of rosary on a woman. She's wearing it the same way a man would, over her belt with both ends hanging down.



The painting is by the "Master of the Saint Lucy Legend" around 1488 and is now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. You can read a full description at the Web Gallery of Art, a splendid picture source.

This saint is way over at the left margin of the painting, and I think this is Saint Apollonia, who was martryed by having all her "beautiful" teeth pulled out (hence the pincers she is carrying). Just to confuse things, there's another woman with pincers over at the right side of the painting, and she also has a rosary (though hers is in her hand and we can't see much of it) -- but her pincers are holding some sort of object, perhaps a stone. I don't know who she is at all.

posts in this series:

If you've got it, flaunt it
Rosaries on belts
Tying one on
Rubg ariybd tge cikkar
Loops, drapes and dangles
Just hanging around
What did Margaret mean?

Loops, drapes and dangles:

Wearing rosaries, part 5

Yet another way of wearing a medieval rosary, as we can see from period paintings, is to have it somehow looped around or pinned to one's shoulder or neckline. This seems to be mostly something women do -- I don't recall seeing any male examples yet, though of course I'm always interested in new evidence, whether it shows that I'm right or not!

The best example I have of this is a depiction of Saint Hedwig of Silesia, an illustration in an illuminated manuscript from the 1350s (specifically, the Hedwigs Codex from 1353: Ludwig Collection, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen).



Saint Hedwig has a somewhat unusual rosary -- it's a straight string of beads rather than the usual looped form. The beads are irregular in size and shape, and don't seem to be in consistent number groups. This is perhaps not surprising, since it's well before the "codification" of the five-decade rosary a century or so later. At the end is a tassel, and it's shown hanging down, possibly fastened to a brooch at the edge of her cloak -- which is a square, decorated version of the common ring brooch so universally used on cloaks and outer garments.

Saint Hedwig seems to have her hands quite full: she's trying to hold both her book (with a finger to keep her place) and her rosary with one hand, while the other is reaching up to grasp something just below her collar. Her fingers are curled around whatever it is, and I actually think it's the upper part of her string of beads, which appears to lead to figures of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus at the front of her neckline.

At first I thought Saint Hedwig was symbolically holding Mary and Jesus, in the same way Saint Anne (the Virgin Mary's mother) is often shown with both Mary and the infant Jesus (drawn rather small) on her lap. But my guess is that in this picture, the artist intended to show Saint Hedwig's rosary anchored at the upper end by an elaborately sculpted brooch of these two figures. One reason I think so is the lack of modeling and color on these figures, quite different from Hedwig's own face which is both colored and shaded to show its roundness. (Though this may just be due to their small size.)

The second really clear portrait I have is this one, which I wish was more widely published because it's so lovely. This is the "Muttergottes mit der Wickenblüte" or "Mother of God with the Pea Blossom," by an unknown artist called the Master of Köln (Cologne, Germany), painted in the first half of the 1400s.



In this overview, it's hard to see exactly what the relationship is between the string of gold beads, the little dangling purse and the round pin that Mary is wearing at the center front neckline of her gown. I was lucky enough to find a detail of this portrait (in black and white, unfortunately) which shows the connection much more clearly:



Here you can see that the string of beads is directly attached to the pin -- and if it's anachronistic to see the Infant Jesus playing with a rosary, it's at least as out of place to see the Virgin Mary wearing a brooch that says "IHC" (a version of the more familiar "IHS" abbreviaton for Jesus).

It's harder to see whether, or how, the little purse is attached, since at least in this photo, I can see only one of its strings, and from the way it's hanging it must have two. It may be attached somewhere near where the Infant is holding the strings. This purse is too small to hold the beads, so the speculation usually is that it contains the relics of saints (another anachronism!) or something else of value.

In the 15th century, by the way, these anachronisms don't seem to have bothered anyone. They served much the same purpose as modern illustrations of Jesus playing basketball with children -- to indicate the continuing (though usually invisible) presence of Christ in "modern" life.

The last picture I have to show is a dim and not very detailed one, but I think it may show something interesting. It's this one, which is a detail of the background from a painting we've already seen:



The lady in this picture seems to have some sort of large loop over her shoulder and hanging below her arm. It's far too vague and too small a detail to place much reliance on, but I wonder if she has her arm through a large rosary -- perhaps pinned to her shoulder?

I have a few more details of people wearing rosaries, which I'll post in a few days, but most of them are examples of things we've already talked about. And I'll keep my eyes open for more.

posts in this series:

If you've got it, flaunt it
Rosaries on belts
Tying one on
Rubg ariybd tge cikkar
Loops, drapes and dangles
Just hanging around
What did Margaret mean?

Ring around the collar:

Wearing rosaries, part 4

Every class I talk to about the history of the rosary has someone in it whose Catholic grandmother told them you should NEVER wear a rosary around your neck. It seems the good nuns who ran Catholic religious education in our grandparents' days were quite certain such a thing could only be (gasp!) sacrilegious.

Perhaps the Material Girl and the modern "Goth" culture have reinforced this idea as well. But in the 15th and 16th centuries it appears to have been quite normal and fashionable to wear rosaries around the neck, at least among certain social groups. We've already seen one 17th-century example of a rosary around the neck here, on a small ivory statue of Saint Rose of Lima.

However I'm told that even back then, the practice was officially frowned upon. I suspect this is because it reinforces people's tendency to treat their beads as secular jewelry. The desire to show off one's success, wealth, and good taste has certainly contributed to the impulse to wear a particularly elegant and expensive rosary. It would not be surprising to find that piety became secondary.

At any rate, two of the best examples I've found of rosaries worn around the neck are in portraits of the nobility. Federigo II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, had his portrait painted by Vecellio Tiziano around 1525-30, wearing what clearly seems to be a rosary around his neck. (This portrait is now in the Prado, Madrid.) I've had difficulty finding a good copy of this picture, as both the beads and his doublet are quite dark in color, making the beads very hard to see. I've lightened the detail below for a better view.



The configuration of five decades plus gauds (marker beads) strongly suggests this is intended to represent a rosary rather than a purely decorative necklace -- especially since it's slightly asymmetrical at the joining of the loop, with one gaud next to and slightly above the other, as happens when there are gauds at both the beginning and end of the five decades. Also, below the joining are three extra beads in a straight line and another gaud, as is common in rosaries of the 16th century and later, and there appears to be something small hanging from the end, though I can't make out what it is -- perhaps a small cross.

A few years later, the "Portrait of a Lady in White" by Moretto da Brescia also shows her wearing a necklace that clearly consists of five groups of 10 small gold beads, plus larger gauds. Again, the configuration of five decades plus gauds strongly suggests this is intended to represent a rosary. This was painted around 1540 and is now in the U.S. National Gallery in Washington.



The detail here shows that the rosary seems to end, not in a cross or pendant as one would expect, but with three small beads arranged in a triangle and a white ribbon bow -- although there's also something else (an intial? a small hollow case?) just above the angle where the beads meet. (See this link for more details of this painting.)

We do have evidence that wearing a rosary around the neck was a practice not confined to the wealthy. When we discussed wearing a rosary attached to the belt, I showed you a closeup of the woman on the floor in the foreground here, praying for healing at the shrine of Saint Agilolph:



Just opposite her, however, is this old man, and he's wearing his rosary around his neck:



Some examples are less clear-cut. This drawing of a very short and fashionable man (perhaps a dwarf?) is from around 1380, and the beads he is wearing around his neck may or may not represent a rosary or paternoster. This is a detail from a miniature of Emperor Charles IV and the seven Imperial Electors, from the Armorial de Gelre, a manuscript on heraldry currently in the Bibliotheque Royale in Brussels.



Clues that this may be a paternoster include the two large beads next to each other -- just as in Federigo de Gonzaga's portrait -- and the two little beads hanging from the bottom, which is a finishing touch I've seen in a 16th-century woodcut that is clearly a rosary.

Now I am not a jewelry expert, so I could be wrong about this (as well as lots of other things) but it also strikes me that very few of the ordinary decorative necklaces I've seen show two such different sizes of beads in the same string, again suggesting the artist may have drawn them this way (perhaps with the size difference exaggerated) to indicate they are prayer beads. The alternation of groups of small beads with a single large one does suggest a paternoster or rosary of some sort, although the beads are not clearly drawn and there seem to be only about three small ones per group.

Finally, we have the jolly friar below, whose beads are flying out behind him as he hastens somewhere on horseback. I've seen this woodcut several times in different places, but I don't know its original source.



(We won't tell him that the Rule of Saint Francis forbids the friars to ride horses, will we? It would be a shame to spoil his fun.)

posts in this series:

If you've got it, flaunt it
Rosaries on belts
Tying one on
Rubg ariybd tge cikkar
Loops, drapes and dangles
Just hanging around
What did Margaret mean?

Tying one on:

Wearing rosaries, part 3

Probably the most common place to see a rosary in a medieval image is attached to someone's belt. Often we can't see enough detail to determine exactly how it's attached. Women's rosaries in particular seem very often to be "magically" attached to the center front clasp of their girdles, as shown on this brass from the tomb of Lettys Terry (d. 1524, Norwich, St. John Maddermarket).



One possibility is that a rosary can be tied onto a belt with a separate piece of ribbon or string, as in the diagram below. This has the advantage that it's not difficult to remove the rosary for prayer or to re-attach it afterwards. It's also a more secure attachment than if the rosary is merely tucked into the belt (as mentioned in part 2 of this series).



Here's a painting that may show a rosary attached in this fashion. This is a detail from a scene of the Virgin and Child with a crowd of women saints, described in this post. Here we have Saint Agnes wearing a very long, extravagant rosary that is attached to her girdle and reaches to the hem of her gown. We can tell this is Agnes, by the way, because she's holding a lamb, Saint Agnes's symbol.

In the upper left corner you can also see something hanging from the girdle of Saint Barbara (whom we recognize because of the pattern of towers on her gown), though since whatever it is is dark beads against a dark gown, it's hard to see exactly what's happening. It does look rather like a linear rosary, but could be just a decorative string of beads.



Sometimes it almost seems as though portrait artists have schemed through the centuries to confound modern viewers, especially those of us who are interested in the details of clothing and accessories. Historical costumers joke that the book they really want is titled Hey, Lady -- Turn Around! and shows the backs of the people being portrayed, so we can see how their clothes are really put together!

Unfortunately, this holds for portraits with rosaries, too. At least half the portraits that show women with center-front rosaries have the woman's hands in front, right where we'd expect the rosary to be attached, so we can't see the details. In some cases, like these below, it's hard to even tell whether the rosaries are attached or whether they are just being held.

Here is a 16th-century Dutch painting -- unknown artist, anonymous sitters, currently in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Nice beads, though!



And this is a portrait of Catherine Pole from 1546. I think her rosary is attached to her girdle, though it's really hard to tell.



Finally, just for a change, here's a woman who's wearing her beads on the back of her belt. Her rather undignified posture is because she is -- as evidence of her devotion -- about to crawl underneath the shrine of Saint Agilolph, in search of healing. This detail is from a panel from the altarpiece of Saint Agilolph (painted in Antwerp, 1521), formerly in the church of Sankt Maria ad Gradus and now in the Metropolitan Chapter of the Hohen Domkirche, Cologne.

posts in this series:

If you've got it, flaunt it
Rosaries on belts
Tying one on
Rubg ariybd tge cikkar
Loops, drapes and dangles
Just hanging around
What did Margaret mean?

Rosaries on belts:

Wearing rosaries, part 2

I began before New Year's to write about how to wear a rosary or paternoster with medieval clothing. I was actually hoping to get several articles written before the Twelfth Night festivities hit, but "Life" wound up interfering and I'm only now getting back to it.

With modern clothes, of course, a rosary is normally carried in a pocket or purse. But especially if you belong to a historical re-enactment group, you will probably want some guidance on how to wear your medieval rosary with your medieval clothes. If you have a gorgeous medieval rosary, you will probably want to flaunt it!

Probably the most common place to see a rosary in a medieval image is attached to someone's belt. Often we can't see enough detail to determine exactly how it's attached. But when we can, sometimes the rosary is clearly just tucked into the belt or looped over it in one way or another.

The detail below, from the tomb brass of Master Geoffrey Kidwelly (d. 1483, Little Wittenham, Berkshire) shows the most typical way we see men's paternosters attached: he has a "tenner" simply tucked into his belt, carried over one hip.



While Master Kidwelly has a straight string of beads, the looped type of paternoster can be tucked into the belt pretty much in the same way:



The wealthy lady donor in the painting below, by an unknown artist from about 1475 in Liège, also appears to have her own (white) rosary tucked into her belt, although she's holding part of a different (red) rosary in her hands. (You can't see the full context in this detail: the red rosary is being held out to her by the Infant Jesus, who is sitting in Mary's lap.)



It's conceivable that a looped rosary could be worn on the belt if the belt was actually passed through the loop, as in the diagram below. But a recent question from a correspondent on a slightly different subject made me think this through a bit. It now seems to me more likely that a rosary would be worn in such a way that you could easily take it off and pray with it. That would make it less likely that you'd wear it in such a way that you'd have to unbuckle your belt in order to take the rosary off. I don't know whether respectable ladies and gentlemen ever unbuckled their belts in public -- would that seem too much like "undressing"?



However, this is logic, not evidence :) And logic, and what seems like common sense to us, has proven to be a very bad guide to what actually went on in history. So take this suggestion for what it's worth. I'd be happy to see concrete evidence either way.

A rosary can also be more or less knotted onto the belt for greater security, by putting part of it over the belt and passing the rest of the beads through the resulting loop:



It's hard to see -- and I'd still like a better view of the details, though this is one of my mystery paintings and I don't know where to look for the original -- but it seems to me that this straight rosary might be attached to the wearer's belt in this way. In this case, I'm imagining the beads have a plain loop of string at one end, and that's what's knotted to the belt, up there in the dark corner. But I can't be sure.



Finally, below is probably the most peculiar way I've seen of slinging a rosary casually onto one's belt. It looks to me as though this gentleman has twined it around the handle of his dagger. That is guaranteed to keep him peaceable, since he can't draw the dagger without the risk of sending his beads flying! This is another image from REALonline, a detail of the Judgement of Daniel painted around 1505 by the Master of Mariapfarr in Salzburg, and now in Graz at the Landesmuseum Joanneum.

posts in this series:

If you've got it, flaunt it
Rosaries on belts
Tying one on
Rubg ariybd tge cikkar
Loops, drapes and dangles
Just hanging around
What did Margaret mean?

If you've got it, flaunt it:

Wearing medieval rosaries, part 1

After writing about giving medieval-style rosaries and paternosters as gifts, it occurred to me it would be useful to see what we can find out about how to wear them.

With modern clothes, of course, a rosary is normally carried in a pocket or purse. But especially if you belong to a historical re-enactment group, you will probably want some guidance on how to wear your medieval rosary with your medieval clothes, especially for any holiday festivities. If you have a gorgeous medieval rosary, you will probably want to flaunt it!

Starting with the simplest, we have a number of portraits of people just holding their beads in their hands, or looped around a wrist or over the arm.

Many religious paintings intended to hang in churches have small pictures of their donors kneeling in front of the holy scene, and quite a few of these donors, if you look closely, are holding rosaries. Here's a typical pair of donors, another Austrian image from REALonline.



This is from one wing of a several-paneled altarpiece, dated to around 1518, by an unknown artist who signed his painting "AA".

When not actively praying, people may hold their rosaries looped over one arm, as in the statue on the left here, carved by the Master of Elsloo in the 1520s. The donor on the right is holding his in the same way: he is from a corner of Rodrigo de Osona the Younger's painting, "The Adoration of the Magi", ca. 1500.



In the 16th-century German woodcut below, the lady on the left looks as though she is removing her rosary from where she had it stashed inside one of her sleeves.



Some of the men's style "Tenners" or ten-bead strings have a wrist loop -- as seen in this portrait of a rather grumpy burgher:



And the estimable Balthasar Eicheister, whose 1528 portrait you may have already seen in Balthasar's acorns, is wearing his rosary wrapped several times around his wrist, like a bracelet:





When I'm wearing medieval clothing, I'm usually also doing things with my hands, so I often look for ways to wear a rosary so it's visible and decorative, but out of my way. My experiments show that if you want a rosary wrapped around your wrist like Balthasar's to stay put and to hang at more or less even lengths, it needs to be fastened to your sleeve with a brooch that catches all of the strands. Otherwise, especially if the string of beads is slippery, it will slip around so that one loop hangs down too far and the others are pulled snug.

I've also tried -- though I haven't seen this in paintings -- looping a rosary several times around my upper arm, above the elbow -- again, firmly fastened with a brooch. This works very well, except that I've learned not to wear it this way when I'm driving a car, because it inevitably catches on the gearshift lever. I now have a red glass rosary with several beads that don't quite match the others, because the string snapped and spilled little red glass beads all over my car, and I never did find the last three of the ones that were missing.

posts in this series:

If you've got it, flaunt it
Rosaries on belts
Tying one on
Ring around the collar
Loops, drapes and dangles
Just hanging around
What did Margaret mean?