Gloves, Past and Present

by Willard M. Smith

The most famous gloves of this type which have been preserved—though the circle is of red silk, not of gold—are those of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, treasured to this day at Oxford. These gloves are at least five hundred and thirty years old. William of Wykeham was the founder of New College, Oxford, in 1379, and the gloves were probably worn by him at the opening religious ceremonial, April 14, 1386. It is extremely likely that they were made especially for that great occasion. They are still in a wonderful state of preservation, and some idea of their magnificence may be had even from their present appearance. They are made of crimson purl knitted silk, embroidered on the back and cuffs with gold, now faded and tarnished. The octagonal designs around the cuffs are separated by squares of emerald green silk; the cuffs are lined with crimson silk; and a double band of gold adorns each finger and thumb. The circles are on the back of the hand, and with their sixteen flame-pointed arms, worked in gold, surround the sacred monogram.

In inventories of church furniture in the Middle Ages, gloves, elaborately decorated, frequently appear. These usually were encrusted with precious jewels and were so valuable that they were left as legacies. A pair of gloves was among the bequests of Bishop Riculfus who died in 915 A.D. Even Thomas à Becket—though it is reported that he never bathed—was buried in immaculate gloves. And we have proof that old mother Becket had to be handled with gloves, for at her baptism, pictured in an ancient illumination, the officiating bishop is represented in long, white chirothecae reaching clear above his venerable elbows.

Gloves in the Church symbolized purity of heart and deed. In an olden missal, ascribed to the seventh century, the officiating bishop, just before offering mass, draws on his snowy linen gloves with this prayer: “O Creator of all creatures, grant me, unworthiest of Thy servants, to put on the clothing of justice and joy, that I may be found with pure hands in Thy sight.”

The royal glove, with which the king received his authority from earliest times, was usually purple, ornamented with pearls and precious stones. Such “were anciently deemed ensigns of imperial dignity,” as Pachymenera records. Previous to the French Revolution, at the crowning of the Kings of France, it was customary for the archbishop to bless a pair of gloves and present them to the sovereign as an emblem of secure possession. In the English coronation ceremonies the glove plays a double rôle. His Majesty being seated in Westminster Hall, the champion enters, caparisoned as an ancient knight, and the herald-at-arms proclaims the challenge. The champion then throws down his gauntlet which, after it has lain a short time, is taken up by the herald and returned to him. The herald make a proclamation of some length, and the gauntlet is again thrown down by the champion of the realm. His Majesty next drinks to the champion’s health and presents him with the cup. The champion then takes up his gauntlet and retires. At the installation in the Abbey, the Duke of Norfolk presents the king with a right-hand glove of elaborate and beautiful design, and the monarch, putting it on, receives from the Archbishop of Canterbury the sceptre with the dove.

That gloves were actually synonymous with kingly power is shown by an instance which occurred in the year 1294, when the Earl of Flanders by the delivery of a glove into the hands of Philip the Fair, “granted him possession of the good towne of Flanders.” The wealth of sentiment they enshrined is further manifested by the act of a woman of royal blood. After the coronation of Louis XIII., we are told, Mary de Medicis, his mother, “had the piety to desire the king’s shirt and gloves, in order to preserve them carefully in her cabinet.”

One of the most dramatic episodes of its kind—when a glove under romantic circumstances was taken as the very embodiment of royal authority—is related in some papers of D’Israeli. Young Conraddin, the last of the Hohenstaufer male line, having fallen into the hands of Mainfroy, who had usurped the crown in 1282, was brought up for execution. On the scaffold the young prince raised his voice in lamentation and declared his right to the succession. In proof of this he cast his glove among the assembled crowd, beseeching that it might be carried to his kinsmen who would avenge his death. It was taken up by a knight and brought to Peter, King of Aragon, who, in virtue of the same glove, was afterwards crowned at Palermo.

The kings of France on the point of death religiously gave their gloves to their sons as a token that they were to be invested with the kingdom. That such should have been almost their last thought and act shows how real to them was the power symbolically invested in the glove.

Gloves, royalty, feudalism—these three are inseparable in history. The granting of lands by the king was the root of the feudal system, in which modern society had its rise, and the lein of the monarch over all lands was the first doctrine of Divine Right. Thus, the glove, by which tenure was given, became also the pledge of the service by virtue of which tenure was held; and on the hand of him who could both bestow the one and demand the other, it was indeed a symbol of supreme authority. In the attire of English monarchs, gloves were especially conspicuous under the Norman and the Plantagenet dynasties when the feudal system was yet young. One would infer that as the emblematical embodiment of the new order, kings found them indispensable to their dignity.

Kings were even buried with gloves on their hands, when “arrayed in ghostly state, they were gathered to their fathers.” Richard I. and John in their tombs wear richly jeweled gloves. It is said that Richard’s are the identical ones by which he was recognized in Austria on his return from the Crusades. In Canterbury Cathedral the gloves of Edward, the Black Prince, are hung above his last resting place.

The Bench inherited gloves direct from the Church. On the judge’s hands they symbolized incorruptibility, uprightness. In England a maiden assize—that is, a county session in which no malefactor is put to death—is commemorated by a gift of white gloves, even to-day. White gloves here typify a clean record, an absence of felony in the judge’s precinct. “They represent the zero of crime,” says Beck, “the antithesis of the black cap. They afford a foretaste of the millennium. The occasion of their presentation is held to reflect credit on any town or neighborhood, and is widely noticed in the newspapers.” The recorder of Cambridge was the happy recipient of this honor, we are told, three times in succession.