Gloves, Past and Present

by Willard M. Smith

Pardoned outlaws, restored from a living death to all the pleasures of home, the privileges of citizenship and the protection of their king, were accustomed to thank their judges by presenting them with gifts of gloves. Later, however, this practice was abused. The offender was compelled to appear in person, and by a present of gloves filled with coins to implore and obtain the judges’ favor. Thus, by degrees, the glove fell away from its original significance and came to be synonymous with the bribe.

Sir Thomas More once received in grateful appreciation of a case won for a lady, a pair of gloves “lined” with forty angels. As was the custom, this delicate acknowledgment was conveyed to him on the first day of January. “Mistress,” wrote the honorable judge in reply, “since it were against good manners to refuse your New Year’s gift, I am content to take your gloves; but as for the lining, I utterly refuse it.”

So, gloves, like most of the good things of life, were exalted and degraded by turns, and made to contradict themselves. Persons taking legal oath are required to-day to do so bare-handed; and a Portuguese proverb expressive of private integrity, is, “He does not wear gloves.”

Keeping the hands covered in the presence of superiors was one of the worst social breaches one could commit in former times. No doubt, the practice of presenting gloves to visitors by universities meant that they recognized their guests to be of such personal standing and learning as to make them worthy of remaining with hands clothed even before the highest collegiate dignitaries. In addition to symbolizing religious, kingly and judicial eminence, therefore, gloves typified also a university honor and were the insignia of the scholar.

At the Trojan games, nearly one thousand years before the Christian era, the gauntlet was used both as a defensive weapon and as a symbol of defiance. Warlike challenge by the glove, accordingly, had a very ancient origin, and in the days of knightly adventure may have been deliberately imitated from the early epics by a more consciously romantic race of heroes. Challenge by the glove frequently is described by Sir Walter Scott—who, by the way, has more to say about gloves than any other writer, even excepting Shakespeare—but nowhere more eloquently, perhaps, than in Ivanhoe, when the Jewish maiden demands a champion.

“‘I am unskilled to dispute for my religion’ (says Rebecca), ‘but I can die for it, if it be God’s will! Let me pray for your answer to my demand for a champion.’

“‘Give me her glove!’ said Beaumanoir. ‘This is indeed a slight and fragile gage for a purpose so deadly! See’st thou, Rebecca, as this slight glove of thine is to one of our heavy steel gauntlets, so is thy cause to that of the Temple, for it is our order which thou hast defied.’”

In the life of Sir Bernard Gilpin, relative to customs of the Scottish-English borders it is recorded, that in the year 1560, the reverend gentleman observed in one of the churches in which he was preaching, a glove, hung high against the raftered roof. On making inquiries he learned that it was placed there in consequence of a “deadly feud” prevailing in the district, and that the owner had suspended it in defiance, daring to mortal combat anyone who took it down.

The last instance of defiance by the glove occurred in 1818 in a wager of battle. The battle, however, never came off; and the instance was the occasion of the repeal of the law permitting the ancient trial by battle and ordeal which existed in England for more than eight centuries.

Gifts of gloves at funerals is a relic of ancient times, as was also their presentation at marriage festivals. In Ben Jonson’s play, The Silent Woman, we learn that a wedding without this token was suspiciously regarded, and passed for a jest. Cries one of the guests: