Treatise on the Paternoster (ff. 28v-48v), and other religious texts, including A myrour to lewde men and wymmen.
The Erotic Paternoster
Jan Ziolkowski
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen:Vol. 88 (1987)
Abstract
The word paternoster has been applied in a variety of senses. In the Middle ages paternoster became a synonym for lovemaking. An early instance of this usage appears in the anonymous Latin Prisciani regula. Later it occurs in Rutebeuf’s Old French De frere Denise and the Middle English Secunda Pastorum. Evidence that the medieval usage perhaps continued into the modern period is found in Thackery’s Vanity Fair and Hugo’s Notre-Dame.
The erotic paternoster may have originated in a playful juxtaposition of a holy prayer and an unholy deed, in an awareness that people saying the paternoster often had their minds on their lovers, or in the proximity of the pasternoster to the kiss of peace in the liturgy.
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Introduction
The word paternoster has stamped a lasting impression on European languages. To this day, it designates such diverse objects as rosary, elevator, fishing line, and bead. Even the sound of the prayer may survive in the English patter and pitter-patter, if these words imitate the repetition of the initial ‘pat’ syllable which takes place when the prayer is recited rapidly. Yet not all of the many nuances of paternoster have been entirely innocuous. Chaucer, for instance, refers to ‘the White Paternoster’, which characterizes the grumbling noises that a servant makes when asked to work. Paternoster seems to have had a still more disreputable sense in the Middle Ages – as a synonym for lovemaking.
The Erotic Paternoster
Jan Ziolkowski
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen: Vol. 88 (1987)
Abstract
The word paternoster has been applied in a variety of senses. In the Middle ages paternoster became a synonym for lovemaking. An early instance of this usage appears in the anonymous Latin Prisciani regula. Later it occurs in Rutebeuf’s Old French De frere Denise and the Middle English Secunda Pastorum. Evidence that the medieval usage perhaps continued into the modern period is found in Thackery’s Vanity Fair and Hugo’s Notre-Dame.
The erotic paternoster may have originated in a playful juxtaposition of a holy prayer and an unholy deed, in an awareness that people saying the paternoster often had their minds on their lovers, or in the proximity of the pasternoster to the kiss of peace in the liturgy.
Introduction
The word paternoster has stamped a lasting impression on European languages. To this day, it designates such diverse objects as rosary, elevator, fishing line, and bead. Even the sound of the prayer may survive in the English patter and pitter-patter, if these words imitate the repetition of the initial ‘pat’ syllable which takes place when the prayer is recited rapidly. Yet not all of the many nuances of paternoster have been entirely innocuous. Chaucer, for instance, refers to ‘the White Paternoster’, which characterizes the grumbling noises that a servant makes when asked to work. Paternoster seems to have had a still more disreputable sense in the Middle Ages – as a synonym for lovemaking.
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See also The Erotic Pater Noster, Redux
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