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(My apologies to anyone who's already heard me ask this question on another list.) Has anyone ever run into any *medieval* source that mentions beads made out of crushed rose petals? I'm asking because it is a popular modern notion that medieval rosaries were made of rose-petal beads, and that this is where rosaries got their name -- both notions being completely unsupported, as far as I've been able to find. Apparently there has been little scholarly work on the actual physical object, namely the *beads* of the rosary or paternoster, and their materials, manufacture, arrangement, fastening, et cetera. Most, if not all, scholars seem to be focusing exclusively on the history of the devotional practice (which is fascinating too, of course), including the recent and very good _Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages_ by Anne Winston-Allen. Most of the other citations I've seen that even *mention* the actual beads of the rosary refer to one book, Eithne Wilkins' _The Rose-Garden Game_ (1969). I can only say that it's not *quite* as bad as I remember from reading it many years ago. The text *is* rather heavily into the "mystical East" and a lot of its historical statements are simply not referenced; I suspect that means that most of them are unsupported hand-waving. However it *does* have more pictures of actual rosaries (and rosary paintings) than I've seen together in one place anywhere else. Anyway, I've been unable to find any references to beads made of rose petals before about 1920, and am still looking. Regards,