"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 medieval Latin Prisciano 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 Thackeray'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 paternoster to the kiss of peace in the liturgy."