Paternosters Blog
A journal about historical rosaries, paternosters and other forms of prayer beads, focusing on those in use before 1600AD.
Updated: 4 hours 24 min ago
Paternosters: Greatest Hits
Excuse 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 ;)
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.
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.
(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.)
Overall, the most popular pages seem to be the series of posts I wrote on Protestants and the rosary. 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.
Next most popular, apparently, are people searching on the word "paternoster." 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.
Third most popular -- again, rather to my surprise -- are the posts I wrote on Islamic rosaries. 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.
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.
Bean Beads. 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.
Knots. 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.
Saint Anthony. 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 Tau-shaped cross, but others go to other posts in the series and I can't tell why.
Trisagion. 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.
Rosary for the Dead. 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).
Roses. 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.
Skulls. 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 skulls on the crucifix of a rosary. 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.
Subjects that have had scattered attention in the last few days include milagros, pro-life rosaries, and rosaries on belts.
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.
Now the real challenge: to find the time to write!
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.
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.
(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.)
Overall, the most popular pages seem to be the series of posts I wrote on Protestants and the rosary. 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.
Next most popular, apparently, are people searching on the word "paternoster." 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.
Third most popular -- again, rather to my surprise -- are the posts I wrote on Islamic rosaries. 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.
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.
Bean Beads. 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.
Knots. 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.
Saint Anthony. 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 Tau-shaped cross, but others go to other posts in the series and I can't tell why.
Trisagion. 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.
Rosary for the Dead. 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).
Roses. 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.
Skulls. 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 skulls on the crucifix of a rosary. 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.
Subjects that have had scattered attention in the last few days include milagros, pro-life rosaries, and rosaries on belts.
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.
Now the real challenge: to find the time to write!
Bottoms 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 Paternosters Yahoo mailing list, who alerted me to a gorgeous and relatively recent book I hadn't seen: Edelsteine, Himmels Schnüre: Rosenkränze und Gebetsketten, 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."
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.
I'm planning a more comprehensive review of this book, but I wanted to discuss one point in particular.
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.
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.
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 ;).
For comparison, here are some of the tenners in the collection:
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:
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 Bishop Fugger's ivory beads, which I wrote about awhile back.
But every one of the 45 or so tenners in Edelsteine that have beads graduated in size is strung with the biggest beads at the top.
What's going on here?
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.
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.
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?
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.
the book
I ordered my copy of this book from the publishers 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.
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.
I'm planning a more comprehensive review of this book, but I wanted to discuss one point in particular.
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.
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.
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 ;).
For comparison, here are some of the tenners in the collection:
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:
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 Bishop Fugger's ivory beads, which I wrote about awhile back.
But every one of the 45 or so tenners in Edelsteine that have beads graduated in size is strung with the biggest beads at the top.
What's going on here?
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.
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.
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?
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.
the book
I ordered my copy of this book from the publishers 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.
Pierced pendants
I 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 scented stuff to serve as pomanders.
(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.)
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.
For those of us who do everything in pewter, however, I got a sale catalog from Fire Mountain that contains a couple of candidates for pendants that might be at least plausible for the Middle Ages or Renaissance:
Large pewter "heart" cage (18x18mm) with heart shaped piercings
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.
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.
Small pewter "heart" cage (16x13mm) with round piercings
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!)
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 round one, 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.
(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.)
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.
For those of us who do everything in pewter, however, I got a sale catalog from Fire Mountain that contains a couple of candidates for pendants that might be at least plausible for the Middle Ages or Renaissance:
Large pewter "heart" cage (18x18mm) with heart shaped piercings
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.
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.
Small pewter "heart" cage (16x13mm) with round piercings
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!)
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 round one, 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.
Christmas blessings
My "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.
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.
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:
There are also details of bottles and jars on a shelf; an ">elaborate gold cup, book and fruit on a table; and a sewing box, pattens (medieval overshoes) and a vase of flowers on the floor. 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.
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.
By the way, if you'll look closely, you can see that the photos bear a copyright notice: I got them from REALonline, the photo index from Austria (which I talked about here). I go back there every so often just to see whether there's something new, and often there is.
But I'm done with research for the day now, and I have Christmas presents to finish.
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.
previous christmas cards:
Christmas 2008
Christmas 2007
Christmas 2006
Christmas 2005
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.
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:
There are also details of bottles and jars on a shelf; an ">elaborate gold cup, book and fruit on a table; and a sewing box, pattens (medieval overshoes) and a vase of flowers on the floor. 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.
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.
By the way, if you'll look closely, you can see that the photos bear a copyright notice: I got them from REALonline, the photo index from Austria (which I talked about here). I go back there every so often just to see whether there's something new, and often there is.
But I'm done with research for the day now, and I have Christmas presents to finish.
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.
previous christmas cards:
Christmas 2008
Christmas 2007
Christmas 2006
Christmas 2005
