If the lord was absent when the vassal waited on him, the latter had to kiss the door, the lock or bolt, which was regarded as a valid substitution for kissing the hand. From this arose the expressions, baiser l’huis, (the door), baiser le verrouil, (the bolt), which were used partly as an expression of slavish subserviency, and partly in an ironical sense of lovers who have been rejected by their mistresses, and thus constrained to
Kiss the door, and kiss its chains
For ladies’ sake who are within.
W. F. H.
As expressive not only of respect, but also of repentance, children in former days were made to kiss the rod by which they had been chastised. Geiler von Keiserberg writes in the sixteenth century: “When children are thrashed they kiss the rods and say:
Liebe ruot, trute ruot
werestu, ich tet niemer guot.[17]
“They kiss the rods and jump over them, yea they leap over them.” We have a memorial of this custom in the phrase, “kissing the rod.”
There is still one great power that we have not mentioned, and one who demands, too, homage by kisses, i.e., the devil; but, in order that the humility shown to him may be as great as possible, he must be kissed on his behind, i.e., on the place where the back ceases to be called the back. Old pictures of the Sabbath on Blocksberg exhibit to us his Satanic majesty, in the guise of a goat or cat, sitting on a high seat, while his worshippers reverently approach and kiss him under his tail. In several confessions of witches we find this kiss still more closely described: “The devil has a big tail, and under it a sort of face, but with this face he never speaks, as the only use he makes of it is to let his most devoted followers kiss the same; for kissing this face is regarded as an especially great honour.” This somewhat awkward kiss occurs, moreover, in several sagas. In Harehyrden the Jeppe gives up his magic flute to the king on condition that the latter kisses his ass under its tail. It can also be shown in actual life, and we have some anecdotes from the Middle Ages which seem to prove that the podex-kiss was used as a derisory punishment. There is also a story told of a merry knight, once upon a time, compelling a party of monks to pay their respects to their abbot in the aforesaid less dignified way.
Kisses in ano seem also to have been required of neophytes on their reception into certain secret societies.
The part this kiss plays in insulting speech ought to be sufficiently well known. The Romans ere now spoke about lingere culum or lambere nates; the Germans more decently say: Küss mich da ich sitz’ (Kiss me where I sit), or Er kann mich küssen da wo ich keine Nase habe (He can kiss me where I have no nose). Frenchmen even use the last mentioned paraphrastic expression. It is told in an old poem about Theodore de Beza, whose youth was, as you are aware, a very dissipated one, that, on one occasion, he said of a lady that he would like to kiss her, but he did not know how he could manage to do so as her nose was far too long. When the lady learnt this she wittily replied:
... Pour si peu ne tenez,
Car si cela seulement vous en garde!
J’ai bien pour vous un visage sans nez.[18]
We have no knowledge if this offer tempted the rigid Calvinist that was to be; but the lady was undoubtedly young, and even if he had not found her face so remarkably beautiful, yet it would have been very different had the invitation come from an old crone, as the well-known saying, “baiser le cul de la vieille,” implies the deepest ignominy that can befall a man, at any rate a gambler—viz., to lose without scoring a point.