At an early date among the monastic orders the practice of counting prayers established itself not only of offering Masses, but of saying vocal prayers as a suffrage for their deceased brethren. For this purpose the private recitation of the 150 psalms, or of 50 psalms, the third part, was constantly enjoined. Already in A.D. 800 we learn from the compact between St. Gall and Reichenau ("Mon. Germ. Hist.: Confrat." Piper, 140) that for each deceased brother all the priests should say one Mass and also fifty psalms.

"Ancient Customs of Cluny", collected by Udalrio in 1096, that when the death of any brother at a distance was announced, every priest was to offer Mass, and every non-priest was either to say fifty psalms or to repeat fifty times the Paternoster (The Lord's Prayer).

To count these accurately there is every reason to believe that already in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a practice had come in of using pebbles, berries, or discs of bone threaded on a string. It is in any case certain that the Countess Godiva of Coventry (c 1075) left by will to the statue of Our Lady in a certain monastery "the circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly" (Malmesbury, "Gesta Pont.", Rolls Series 311). Another example seems to occur in the case of St. Rosalia (A. D. 1160), in whose tomb similar strings of beads were discovered. Even more important is the fact that such strings of beads were known throughout the Middle Ages - and in some Continental tongues are known to his day - as "Paternosters" which are Our Fathers. The evidence for this is overwhelming and comes from every part of Europe.

In the times before St. Dominic we can see that the, Paternosters, (The Lord's Prayer) was prayed, and we know from history that during St. Dominic's time The Lord's Prayer and Our Lady's Psalter, (The Hail Mary) were prayed on pebbles, or a string of beads.

St. Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins was hindering the conversion of the

Albigensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse where heprayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penance's in order to appease the anger of Almighty God.
Tradition tells that our Lady appeared to him while he prayed. The story is told that she spoke to him gently that day in the forest.
"My son," the Queen of Heaven said, "prayer and penance are the only way to win souls. Pray my Psalter and teach it to your people. That prayer, will never fail."

"Our Lady's Psalter? The Hail Mary one hundred and fifty times? That is not a new prayer," Brother Dominic said to himself.
He frequently prayed the Psalter as he walked along the road.Many people did. Those who could not read Holy Scripture and those who could not understand it often said a Hail Mary for each of the Psalms.Their simple prayer took the place of the one hundred and fifty Psalms of David that the learned ones could read.

Counting prayers was not new either before the birth of Jesus, the people who belonged to ancient religions had counted on knotted cords the prayers they said to their gods. After the coming of our Lord, the hermits who lived in the desert in the early centuries counted their prayers to God by means of pebbles.

Even in his own time, the thirteenth century, Brother Dominic knew that people were using a string of beads called "paternosters." On these they counted the number of times they repeated the Lord's Prayer. What did our Lady mean? More>>