Paternoster (Period)

A paternoster is a closed string of beads with a small cross or tassel pendant at the bottom, used for meditation and prayer.  It’s a period charge, found in the arms of Ruswörmb or Rußworm, 1605 [Siebmacher 144].  If the pendant cross hangs from a short beaded string, it may also be blazoned a “rosary” in Society armory; and this is the modern term for both forms of the charge.

The paternoster’s beads may be uniform in size, or may have larger beads at regular intervals: both forms were found as period artifacts, and it is considered an artistic detail in Society heraldry.  See also jewelry.

Christian de Holacombe bears as a badge: A paternoster gules, its cross Or.

Elizabethe Alles bears:  Argent, a paternoster purpure tasseled Or and on a chief dovetailed purpure three escallops argent.

Poplyr Childs bears: Or, two arrows in saltire vert within a rosary gules.