custom of delivering a glove in token of
investiture is the same thing. In 1002, the bishops
of Paderborn and Moncaro were put in possession
of their sees by receiving a glove as the
sign thereof. But the custom gradually became
a mere fee to the land-stewards or bailiffs on
entering into possession of one's land: passing
from this symbolic fee to a money
payment called glove-money, which then became
an ordinary fee to all servants—glove-money,
for a pair of gloves presented or service
rendered. This has been spoken of before.

This manner of payment, too, is the archaic and
original meaning of the white gloves given away
at weddings; they were fees given to the bridesmaids
and bridesgroom's-men for services
rendered. The Belgic custom at weddings is odd.
The priest asks the bridegroom for a ring and
a pair of gloves; red gloves, if they can be had;
with three bits of silver money inside them.
Putting the gloves into the bridegroom's right
hand, he joins this with the right hand of the
bride, and then, dexterously loosing them, he
leaves the gloves in the bride's grasp; as a
symbol, doubtless, that she is taken possession
of, bought and paid for and conquered like
any other vassal. We used to do strange things
with gloves at weddings. In 1785, a certain
surgeon and apothecary was married in the
town of Wrexham; and the eyewitness, who
tells the anecdote, says: "I saw at the doors of
his own and neighbours' houses, throughout the
street where he lived, large boughs and parts of
trees that had been cut down and fixed there,
filled with white paper, cut in the shape of
women's gloves, and of white ribbons." Whether
any special blessing on the feminine part of the
population was expected to follow, remains
untold. A pleasant custom, too, was that of giving
gloves full of money at weddings: one of the
few obsolete which it would be an advantage
to revive.

But gloves are also used as symbols of quarrel
as well as of possession, and to throw down
the gauntlet has always meant to challenge, to
assume the right to defend, both in chivalrous
times, and before and after. Even we have still
the Champion in our coronations, with his well-
trained steed, and the beautiful manor of
Scrivelsby, held on the easy condition that he shall
ride into Westminster Hall—the riding out again,
backing, is not quite so pleasant—challenge the
assembled universe to dispute the title of the then
occupant of the throne, and fling down a gage on
the floor: which, in process of time, one of the
royal footmen perhaps, or perhaps a beadle, or one
of the Household Brigade,will pick up, and return
to the special Dymoke performing. Who does
not know that beautiful story of Bernard Gilpin,
when he went into the church of the Quarrelsome,
and saw the gloves hung up as a general
challenge to all comers who would care to take an
ill-conditioned fellow's insult on their shoulders?
The sexton would not for the life of him touch
the gloves: but Bernard Gilpin, taking a long
pole, lifted them off their hook, and took both
them and the quarrel on himself: drawing
them forth during the sermon, and rating the
parish soundly for harbouring such evil thoughts,
and suffering such unchristian practices to
abound. Yet it was a very common thing in
chivalrous times to hang up the gauntlet in the
church; when woe to him who touched it or
took it down! Nothing less than a quarrel à
outrance for a cause as silly as the mode of
defending it was barbarous. The last challenge
by means of a glove was in Queen Elizabeth's
time, in the year 1571, on the occasion of a
dispute concerning some lands in Kent: when a
trial by single combat was demanded—the
disputants meeting in court, where one drew his glove
and threw it down, and the other picked it up
with the point of his sword. For the honour
of humanity and common sense the stupid fools
were not let to fight; and the rightful ownership
of the Kentish lands was settled some other
way.

Sometimes a glove was used as the symbol of
protection, not of quarrel and insult: and even
to this day it is hung out in some towns
during fair-times, in remembrance of the time
when it was a sign that all who gathered there
were safe from those annoying things called
duns, and need be under no apprehension of
sudden seizure by living shoulder-knots, more
startling than pleasing. "Hoisting the glove"
is still practised at Exeter during the Lammas
Fair. It is a glove of immense size, which is
stuffed and carried through the city, hoisted on
the top of a long pole all beflowered and
beribboned, attended with music, the beadles, and
the mobility, then hung out of a window of
the Guildhall as a sign that the fair has begun;
and when it is taken in, the fair is ended. At
the Free Mart of Portsmouth, also, a glove was
hung out of the window during fair-time, and
while it hung no one was arrested. So at
Macclesfield, in Cheshire; at Newport, Isle of Wight,
during market-time; and at Liverpool, on the
fair-days of the 25th of July, and 2nd of November.
At Barnstaple, too, a large glove, decked
with dahlias, is hung out from the window of the
Quay Hall, the oldest building of the city, and
while it hangs the fair is going on, and when it
is withdrawn the fair is at an end; and at Chester,
so famous for its gloves, they do the same thing.
The glove, in all these instances, meaning the
symbol of protection. Was it protection or
possession that the Romans symbolised by their
standard of the winged hand of power? And
which did the kings of Ulster mean by their
device of the hand upon their shields and banners?
What is the secret reading of the baronet's bloody
hand? What of the red hand of the North
American Indians, which they regard so
superstitiously? A symbol yet more superstitiously
regarded in Mexico, where the red hand daubed
on the monuments of Yucatan and Guatemala is
believed to have all sorts of hidden power. In
Lycia, too, on the tombs there, an open hand is
a frequent emblem: and the Turks and Moors
regard it as a preservative against the evil eye,
provided it be open enough.

To wear a glove in one's hat or cap meant one