BEARD
362
BEARD
the twelfth century. The BoUandists quote WilUam
of Malmesburj- (De Gest. Pont. Angl., IV, 4) as stat-
ing that the Countess Godiva, who founded a rehgious
house at Coventry in 1040, donated, when she was
about to die, a circlet or string of costly precious
stones on which she used to say her prayers, to be
placed on a statue of the Blessed Virgin. In the
course of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth cen-
turies, such paternosters came into extensive use
especially in the religious orders. At certain times
corresponding to the canonical hours, lay brothers
and lay sisters were obliged to say a certain number
of Our Fathers as an equivalent of the clerical obliga-
tion of the Divine Office. The military orders like-
wise, notably the Knights of St. John, adopted the
paternoster beads as a part of the equipment of lay
members. In the fifteenth century, wearing the
l)eads at one's girdle was a distinctive sign of mem-
bership in a religious confraternity or third order.
If a certain worldliness in the use of beads as orna-
ments in those days had to be checked, as it was by
various capitulary ordinances prohibiting monks and
friars, for instance, from having beads of coral,
crystal, amber, etc., and nuns from wearing beads
around the neck, e\-idence is not wanting that pater-
nosters were also openly carried as a sign of penance,
especially by bands of pilgrims processioually visiting
the shrines, churches, and other holy places of Rome.
From their purpose, too. it is natural that prayer
beads were prized as gifts of friendship. They were
especially valued if they had been worn by a person
of known sanctity or if they had touched the relics
of any saint, in which cases they were often piously
believed to be the instruments of miraculous power
and healing virtue.
Beads were generally strung either on a straight thread, or cord, or so as to form a circlet, or loop. At the present time chained beads have almost en- tirely taken the place of the corded ones. To facili- tate the counting or to mark off certain divisions of a devotion, sets of beads, usually decades, are sepa- rated from each other by a larger bead or sometimes by a medal or metal cross. The mmiber of beads on a chaplet, or Rosary, depends on the number of prayers making up each particular form of devotion. A full Rosary consists of one hundred and fifty Hail Marj-s, fifteen Our Fathers, and three or four beads corresponding to introductory versicles and the "Glory be to the Father", etc. Such a "pair of beads" is generally worn by religious. Lay people commonly have beads representing a third part of the Rosary. The Brigittine beads number seven paters in honour of the sorrows and joys of the Blessed Virgin, and sixty-three aves to commemorate the years of her life. Another Crown of Our Lady, in use among the Franciscans, lias seventy-two aves, based on another tradition of the Blessed Virgin's age. The devotion of the Cro\\-n of Our Lord con- sists of thirty-three paters in honour of the years of Our Lord on earth and five aves in honour of His sacred wounds. In the church Latin of the Middle Ages, many names were applied to prayer beads as: devotioncs, signacula, oraculii, precaria, patriloquium , serta. preculce, numcralia, computum, calculi, and others. An old English form, bedes, or bedi/s, meant primarily prayers. From the end of the fifteenth centurj' and in the beginning of the sixteenth, the name paternoster beads fell into disvise and was re- placed by the names ave beads and Rosary, chaplet, or crown.
The use of beads among pagans is undoubtedly of greater antiquity than their Christian use; but there is no evidence to show that the latter is derived from the former, any more than there is to establish a relation between Christian devotions and pa^an forms of prayer. One sect in India used a chaplet consisting generally of one hundred and eight beads
made of the wood of the sacred Tulsi shrub, to tell
the names of Vishnu; another accomphshed its in-
vocations of Siva by means of a string of thirty-two
or sixty-four berries of the Rudraksha tree. These
or other species of seeds and berries were chosen as
the material for these chaplets on account of some
traditional association with the deities, as recorded
in sacred legends. Some of the ascetics had their
beads made of the teeth of dead bodies. Among
some sects, especially the votaries of Vishnu, a string
of beads is placed on the neck of children when, at
the age of six or seven, they are about to be initiated
and to be instructed in the use of the sacred formu-
laries. Most Hindus continue to wear the beads
both for ornament and for use at prayers. Among the
Buddhists, whose religion is of Brahminic origin,
various prayer-formulas are said or repeated with the
aid of beads made of wood, berries, coral, amber, or
precious metals and stones. A string of beads cut
from the bones of some holy lama is especially
valued. The number of beads is usually one hundred
and eight; but strings of thirty or forty are in u.se
among the poorer classes. Buddhism in Burma,
Tibet, China, and Japan alike employs a number of
more or less complicated forms of devotion, but the
frequently recurring conclusion, a form of salutation,
is mostly the same, and contains the mystic word
OM, supposed to have reference to the Buddhistic
trinity. It is not uncommon to find keys and trinkets
attached to a Buddh>.st's prayer beads, and generally
each string is provided with two little cords of special
counters, ten in number, in the form of beads or metal
disks. At the end of one of these cords is found a
miniature thunderbolt; the other terminates in a
tiny bell. With the aid of this device the devotee
can count a hundi-ed repetitions of his beads or
lOSxlO.xlO formulas in all. Among the Japanese,
especially elaborate systems of counting exist. One
apparatus is described as capable of registering
36,736 prayers or repetitions.
The Mohammedans use a string of ninety-nine (or one hundred) beads called the subha or tasbih, on which they recite the "beautiful" names or attributes of Allah. It is divided into tliree equal parts either by a bead of special shape or size, or bj' a tassel of gold or silk thread. The use of these Islamic beads appears to have been established as early as the ninth century independently of Buddhistic influ- ences. Some critics have thought the Mohammedan chaplet is kindred to a Jewish form of one hundred blessings. The beads in general use are said to be often made of the sacred clay of Mecca or Medina. Among travellers' records of prayer beads is the famous instance, by Marco Polo, of the King of Malabar, who wore a fine silk tlu-ead strung with one hundred and four large pearls and rubies, on which he was wont to pray to his idols. Alexander Von Humboldt is also quoted as finding prayer beads, called Quipos, among the native Peruvians.
EssER, Zttr Arch(Fologi€ der Paternoster Schnur in Compte rendu du IV congrH scien. Internat., etc. (Friboxirg, 1898). Sciences Reliffieuses, § 1; Thurston, Archcrologu of the Rosary -The Month. No. 442. April. 1901; Esseb, Un
lieben Frauen Rosenhram (Paderbo
1S89).
John R. Volz.
Beard. — Among the Jews, as among most Oriental
peoples, the beard was especially cherished as a
sjTnbol of virility; to cut off another man's beard
was an outrage (II Kings, x, 4); to shave or to
pluck one's own beard was a sign of mourning
(Jer., xli, 5; xlviii, 37); to allow the beard to be de-
filed constituted a presumption of madness (I Kings.
xxi, 13). Certain ceremonial cuttings of the beard
which probably imitated pagan superstition were
strictly forbidden (Lev., xix, 27; xxi, 5). On the
other hand, the leper was commanded to shave
(Lev., xiv, 9). These usages which we learn from
