>
> >>Has anyone ever seen a medieval paternoster? Was it exactly the same as a modern
rosary?
> > Oriens.
> >
> >In 1290 the wife of Edward I of England purchased both paternosters and
> coral and jet beads from a jeweler in London; other paternosters she
> purchsed in the same year were described by her clerk as "de opere filarum" but
> the meaning of that description is unclear. These purchases were almost
> certainly intended to be strung as rosaries (red coral and black jet beads were
> always a highly favored combination for medieval rosaries).
>
> My understanding is that the beads were used to keep track of Aves and the
> paternosters to count Our Fathers. In surviving medieval rosaries the
> paternosters are larger than the beads and are often of gold, silver, or
> sometimes rock crystal.
>
> For Queen Eleanor's purchases see my *Eleanor of Castile: Queen and
> Society in Thirteenth-Century England* (NY: St Martin's, 1995), pp. 57,
> 278 note 190.
>
> John Parsons
Many thanks. Elasticus.
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