Pater Noster cord

[4] In 3rd century Roman Egypt, the Coptic Rite Desert Fathers in Scetes carried pebbles in pouches to count their praying of the Psalms.

[6] The oldest examples to be found were discovered by archaeologists during an excavation of the Celtic monastery on Lindisfarne in 2022: made of Atlantic salmon vertebrae, they are believed date from the 8th- or 9th-century.

[8] According to the Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, the elderly Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, spent the day before his death at the hands of Viking mercenary Brodir during the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 away from combat, kneeling upon a cushion, and singing 50 Psalms, 50 paters, 50 aves, and then reciting the next 50 Psalms using a Pater Noster cord.

[9] The making of Paternoster Cords in the Middle Ages was done by guilds who were distinguished based on the kind of materials they used to assemble them ("coral and shell, amber and jet, or bone and horn").

[10] In the present day, religious orders such as the Solitaries of DeKoven (a community of Anglican hermits) make Pater Noster cords to support themselves.