Prospero and other URLs with // in path

RFC 1738 describes Prospero URLs that look like this:

prospero://host.dom//pros/name

RFC 1738 is explicit that the double slash at the beginning of the 
path is allowed.

In RFC 2396 and RFC 2396bis, these appear to now be illegal. Is this 
correct? Or am I misreading the BNF somehow? Are there any URI scheme 
besides Prospero where this is likely to be an issue?
-- 

   Elliotte Rusty Harold
   
   Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
   http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml            
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA