And now the Glove’s true origin is hid
No longer. This is it. Fair girls alone
Wore on their hands what now is common grown.
Then came the Emperor, and then his court,
And then at last the folk of every sort.”
Charming in its naïveté, is it not, my dear friend, this fable which gives the Glove the same origin as the rose!
The use of Gloves was widely spread in the Middle Ages. They covered the wrist entirely, even with women. “The Gloves of the common people,” says M. Charles Louandre, “were of sheep-skin, of doe skin, or of fur; those of bishops were made in chain-stitch of silk with gold thread; those of simple priests were of black leather.” But what will surprise you is that, contrary to the present custom, it was absolutely forbidden to appear gloved before great personages.
In a manuscript lately published, The Sayings of the Merchants, a merchant cries, with an engaging air—
“I have pretty little bands,
And for damsels dainty Gloves,