South German Carved Bone Rosary Bead

Period: 1600-1700

Origin: Germany

Medium: Bone

Literature: The large central carved bead of the rosary would mark the end of a cycle of prayer and the beginning of the next naturally prompting the worshipper to ‘remember me’. Rosaries assisted the devoted in accurately repeating from memory the correct number of prayers and incantations required by his faith. The 11th century bequest of Lady Godiva to the monastery of Coventry includes ‘a circlet of gems which she threaded on a string in order that by fingering them one by one as she successively recited her prayers, she might not fall short of the exact number’.