Accessorize!: Paternoster edition

I think I might start a series, called Accessorize! that looks in-depth at various accessories an Anglo-Norman lady might have had. I'm defining clothing as the bare minimum one can venture outside wearing and still be socially acceptable, and accessories are everything else. I'm including veils as there was a fashion for women to wear their hair out! I want to cover paternosters (this post), hair things, veils, rings and necklaces, belts and the things hanging from them, pockets, and overclothes like cloaks. I'd like to be able to cover more than just my persona's class (a fairly wealthy merchant's daughter) but a peasant woman's accessories are not only fewer in number than her noble counterpart, we also have less evidence for them these days because they weren't considered important enough to write about. Unfortunately, these posts may not be picture-heavy like my garb updates are, but they should be fairly information-rich!

Today's post, about the paternoster, is primarily a compilation of information I've found at Paternoster Row and its accompanying blog (unfortunately dead since 2010, RIP).

So, as a devout, merchant-class Anglo-Norman, Emmeline may have had a paternoster. Similar to the modern rosary, the paternoster began as a way for lay monks to "properly" pray as they could not read and thus recite all 150 Psalms...in Latin, a language they likely didn't even understand. Reciting 150 Our Fathers, however, was deemed an acceptable substitute, and when you're repeating something that many times, you've gotta keep track of it somehow. So thus, the paternoster was invented, and named after the prayer itself. Chaplets are also a sort of prayer bead string, very similar to a rosary or paternoster, but they're defined as a "non-rosary devotion."

The cult of Mary developed in the end of the 12th century and that saw the introduction of larger beads, known as "Gauds" or "Our Father" beads separating ten-bead sets (decades) of Ave beads. Depending on whether you recited Our Fathers or Hail Marys, you would recite ten of one prayer and one of another, alternating until you'd finished your rosary or chaplet. Not every prayer bead strand had ten-bead sets: some had twelve-bead sets, others had seven....I'm not Catholic, so please don't ask me what those are for!

Based on what I've read at Paternoster Row, 5-decade strands are the most common, and I haven't been able to determine how common the gauds are between decades. I personally like them a lot, they're a good way to keep track of how many beads you've strung while you're making a paternoster, and they provide a nice bit of contrast! Ten-bead and 150-bead paternosters are also common, in loops or linear strands. Loops could be hung from your arm or pinned on with a brooch. Linear strands were more frequently used by male devotees, and could be slung around a belt. The "tenner" could be hung from a finger, or turned into a ring, as was done in Henry VIII's England, when he was attempting to stamp out Catholicism.

A Really Terrible photo of the paternoster I made tonight
with what I think is aventurine 'Ave' beads and snowflake
obsidian or jasper gaudes, with a red howlite cross.

Paternosters were strung loosely (unlike mine, which more closely resembles a modern rosary) so one could slide the beads along to keep track of how many repetitions they'd made. Beads were selected according to one's social status: if a peasant woman had a paternoster, she would likely have wooden beads. A noblewoman may have pearls and metal beads. Emmeline, as a merchant's daughter, has semiprecious stones that are quite a bit cheaper than pearls and metal. Interestingly enough, there seems to be a sort of hierarchy for what gauds pair with the ordinary beads. As a general rule of thumb, gauds should be larger or differently-shaped to the ordinary beads, and of a higher or equal status to the Ave beads, never lower.

Paternoster of Saint Anthony Abbot

Chris over at Paternoster Row has examined depictions of the rosaries of Saint Anthony, and I think this one to the left is pretty cool. It looks like a bunch of odd beads, with clear and obvious gauds separating them. Chris theorizes that perhaps it's not got standard numbers of beads between gauds due to artistic license or imperfect mending, and I think imperfect mending is a bit more likely, given the care taken with depicting the beads. My favorite part, however, is the odd beads. Some are rondelles, some are spherical, and they look to be made of various materials, most probably wood or bone for the lighter-colored ones and glass or crystal for the large, clear beads. Chris also notes they're "quite large for rosary beads," at least by modern standards, which makes sense: given that the church didn't impose sumptuary legislation on paternosters (indeed, some even encouraged ornate paternosters!) they were treated as jewelry, even by the less-devout members of society. When you cannot wear fancy things, having one exception to the rule means that one exception will be exploited and pushed to its limits. Also, when you're praying the rosary frequently, smaller beads probably means bigger hand cramps.

As for danglies, sometimes charms would be added with the gauds, and the 'focal point' of the paternoster would be a cross, a tassel, or a larger charm, usually something like a pilgrim medallion with religious significance. More decorative paternosters would have pomanders or purses dangling as focal points. The five-bead 'drop' with a cross or medallion is quite modern, and isn't really seen before 1600, so if you (like me) are looking at a paternoster for your persona, avoid the drops!

Conclusion: there's a hell of a lot to unpack here, and (like usual) there's not much at all for earlier periods. A lot of Chris's research has been focused after 1400, and there's a bit of stuff for twelfth-century. Anything earlier than that, and I'm sorry but it doesn't seem like anyone knows if rosaries specifically existed. Prayer beads I think have been a Thing for a very long time, but this specific format seems to have come into being during the twelfth century and popularized in the fourteenth and fifteenth.