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I.—An English Gold Rosary of about 1500

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

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Extract

The English Medieval Gold Rosary which forms the subject of the communications to be laid before the Society by my colleague Mr. Oman and myself was brought to the Victoria and Albert Museum about eighteen months ago. So far as I am aware hardly any one knew of its existence previously. It had been the property of the Langdales of Houghton Hall, Sancton, an old Yorkshire Roman Catholic family, and had apparently been found some considerable time ago in a chest with a number of other objects connected with religion. It had not until quite recently been regarded as of any special importance or interest, and nothing apparently can be traced as to its history.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1936

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References

page 1 note 1 The use of the word rosary is of course an anachronism. But it appears to have come into general use during the century following the date at which these particular beads were made.

page 2 note 1 The obvious exceptions are the beads numbered 15, 16, 18, 22, 23, 25, 37,41, and 50; but there may be others in doubtful cases.

page 6 note 1 Other possible instances are no. 10, with S. Stephen (26th December) and S. John (27th December); no. 22, with Mary Salome and Mary the mother of James (27th March); no. 30, with S. Alban of Mainz (1st December) and S. Nicholas (6th December); and no. 46, with S. Jerome (30th September) and S. Cornelius (14th September).

page 6 note 2 Canon Doble has, however, made a suggestion which is at any rate worth recording. Our information about S. Endelient is largely due to Nicholas Roscarrock, a graduate of Exeter College in 1568, who was accused as early as 1577, with certain others, for not attending the church services, and who went in that year to Douai and Rome. Three years later he was imprisoned in the Tower and racked, and again in 1594 he was committed to the Fleet; he died in 1633 after spending the last years of his life in the household of Lord William Howard at Castle Howard. He had a special devotion to S. Endelient, and wrote her life and a poem in her honour, of which the manuscript is in the University Library at Cambridge. If we could suppose that the rosary was at that time in the possession of Lord William Howard (for which there is, so far as I know, no evidence whatever) it would seem possible that these two beads were added at that time in honour of the three canonized Williams and of Nicholas Roscarrock's patroness. A full account of Nicholas Roscarrock, with a transcript of the life of S. Endelient and the poem, is to be found in St. Endellion Prebendal Church, its Constitution and History, by the Rev. Taylor, Thomas, Truro, 1929Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 See St. Nectan, St. Keyne and the Children of Brychan in Cornwall, by the Rev. Doble, Gilbert H. (Exeter, 1930), in addition to the book mentioned in the preceding note.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 The present method of associating each decade with meditation on a particular mystery apparently originated in Germany early in the fifteenth century and only became general towards the middle of the sixteenth, supplanting a variety of other systems. The most accessible short account of the history and use of the rosary is to be found in the article by Fr. Thurston in the Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Chrétienne, iii, 399 ff., s.v. Chapelet.

page 14 note 1 Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 816.

page 14 note 2 Ibid. iv, 23.

page 14 note 3 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Stoughton, vii, 6, 13.

page 14 note 4 Camden Society, 1847, 4–5.Google Scholar

page 15 note 1 Bury Wills and Inventories, Camden Society, 1850, 36, 42.Google Scholar

page 15 note 2 North Country Wills, ii, 93–4.

page 15 note 3 Essex Archaeological Society, xx, N.S., 1933, 12, 13, 15.Google Scholar

page 15 note 4 Testamenta Eboracensia, i, 202.

page 15 note 5 Ibid. i, 199.

page 16 note 1 Testamenta Eboracensia, iii, 3.

page 16 note 2 Archaeologia, lxi, 1908, 170.Google Scholar

page 16 note 3 Wills in Doctors Commons, Camden Society, 1862, 6.Google Scholar

page 16 note 4 ed. F. Madden, 1831, 179.Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 Dalton, O. M., Catalogue of Early Christian, Mediaeval, and Later Rings in the British Museum, 1912, nos. 718, 723, 744, 767.Google Scholar

page 17 note 2 C. C. Oman, Catalogue of Rings in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1930, no. 735.Google Scholar

page 17 note 3 Dalton, ibid. nos. 718, 719.

page 18 note 1 Notes and Queries, 4th S., x, 330.

page 18 note 2 Archaeological Journal, xxv, 1868, 6071.Google Scholar Since transferred to the British Museum, see Antiquaries Journal, xvi, 321.

page 18 note 8 Essex Archaeological Society, xx, N.S., 1933, 12.Google Scholar

page 18 note 4 Norfolk Archaeology, iii, 1852, 97.Google Scholar

page 18 note 5 The Reliquary, xv, 1874, 69.Google Scholar

page 18 note 6 Evans, Joan, English Jewellery, 1921, pl. xv, p. 8Google Scholar and Proc. Soc. Ant., vi, 1876, 510.Google Scholar

page 19 note 1 Joan Evans, ibid., pl. xv, i, 3.

page 19 note 2 Jackson, , History of English Plate, ii, 1911, fig. 839.Google Scholar

page 20 note 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission, 7th Report, 1879, 537.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, i, 254.

page 21 note 2 Nicholas, Sir H., History of the Battle of Agincourt, 1833, Appendix, 18.Google Scholar

page 21 note 3 North Country Wills, ii, 129.

page 21 note 4 ‘To Our Lady of Walsingham X of my grete beedes of goold lassed wt sylke crymmesyn and goold, wt a grete botton of goold, and tassellyd wt the same. To our Lady of Pewe X of the same beedes. To Seint Edmund of Bury X of the same beedes. To Seint Thomas of Canterbury X of the same beedes. To my Lord Cardynall X Aveis wt ij Paternosters of the same beedes. To my Lord Thomas Fyncham X Aveis and ij Paternosters of the same beedes’ (Testamenta Eboracensia, iv, 153).

page 22 note 1 Essex Archaeological Society, xx, N.S., 1933, 12.Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 Archaeological Journal, xxxvii, 1880, 206.Google Scholar

page 22 note 3 Bury Wills and Inventories, Camden Society, 1850, 95.Google Scholar