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| October
2002-October 2003 Following the invitation by John Paul II in his encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariae (Fall 2002) the Catholic Church celebrates a year dedicated to the rosary (October 2002/2003). The Mary Page participates in these ways in this venture. It published in its New section (What's New) a weekly column on the various articles of the rosary. It also published Rosary Markings, a booklet summarizing important information on the history and practices of this devotion. Our third contribution to the rosary celebration is an exhibit of rosaries. The rosary's popularity is due in part to its "hands-on" character. The beads gliding between our fingers make it a very physical prayer. Thus, the beads, as we call them, become an important ingredient and support of the rosary devotion.
The physical “rosary” is not a Christian invention. It
was, and is, essentially a tallying device, known in Buddhism, Hinduism
and Islam. It has had the same function in Christianity since antiquity.
Originally, this tallying device served to monitor penitential
exercises. Penitents used strings or little cords with knots to count
the number of “Our Fathers” to be recited. The name given to this
tallying device was Paternoster or
Pater.
The
Paternoster is older than the physical rosary but co-existed with the
latter throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There existed a
profession of Paternoster-Makers, specializing in the manufacture of
Paternosters and rosaries.
The transfer of the name “rosary” from the prayer form to the
physical object took place at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Long before
this occurred, the tallying devices, later called “rosary,” were
either simple cords or closed chains of various lengths, with or without
subdivisions, and made of a variety of materials (wood, bone, coral,
mother of pearl, pebbles, seeds, pits ...). Around 1500 we find two
major types of “rosaries”:
a)
Prayer chains with fifty beads or pearls symbolizing the
fifty Aves,
clustered in five groups of ten, each of these groups separated from the
next by a larger bead or pearl;
b)
The so-called tenner, a short string or cord with ten beads and some
additional Paternoster beads. Affixed to one end there was a ring to
slip the tenner from one finger to the other (5 x 10). The opposite end
was decorated with a tassel, medal or special knot.
Special
devotions, fashion and local customs brought forth a variety of
beads. The short
form of the “tenner” was usually reserved for men; it was the
typical tallying device for monks as late as the eighteenth century.
Women resorted to the longer version and adorned their prayer
chain with miniature figurines, images, scented dried fruit and flowers,
and also pearls and gems. Among
the better known varieties are the ring rosaries, Bridget rosaries (six
groups of ten plus three pearls), the psalter rosaries (fifteen groups of ten),
rosaries based on the five wounds of Christ with symbols of the wounds
hooked into the rosary. Some rosaries were made by goldsmiths (Altötting,
Germany, sixteenth century); others with pits from apricots engraved with the
portraits of civil rulers. Mass production started early (fifteenth/sixteenth
century) and
allowed for cheaper rosaries from wood, jet, bone, glass, pewter, lead
and iron. The eighteenth century knows of filigree rosaries, the
nineteenth century produced
chain-stitched rosaries. During these centuries three beads for faith,
hope and charity were added, and the Greek cross was replaced by the
Latin cross. The
Orthodox
tradition knows the komposkoini (literally a rope with knots).
Popular since medieval times, the komposkoini is used by monks
and nuns for the recitation of the Jesus Prayer. The cord
is attached to a cross and has from thirty-three (years of
Jesus' earthy existence) to fifty and up to three-hundred (number of genuflections) knots. Mary plays a
central intercessory role in the longer formulas of the Jesus Prayer.
This exhibit wants to document one of the many ways in which people have expressed their devotion to Mary with the very beads they use to pray the rosary. The gamut is wide. It encompassed countries, materials, saints and special themes. |
