Glove

GLOVE, a covering for the hand, commonly with a separate sheath for each finger.

The use of gloves is of high antiquity, and apparently was known even to the pre-historic cave dwellers. In Homer Laertes is described as wearing gloves in his garden. Herodotus tells how Leotychides filled a glove with money received as a bribe, and Xenophon records that the Persians wore fur gloves having sep arate sheaths for the fingers. Among the Romans also there are occasional references to the use of gloves. Varro remarks that olives gathered with the bare fingers are better than those gathered with gloves. In the northern countries the general use of gloves would be more natural than in the south, and it is not without significance that the most common mediaeval Latin word for glove (guantus or wantus, Mod. Fr. gant) is of Teutonic origin (0.H.G. want). Among the Germans and Scandinavians, in the 8th and 9th centuries, the use of gloves, fingerless at first, would seem to have been but universal; and in the case of kings, prel ates and nobles they were often elaborately embroidered and bejewelled. This was more particularly the case with the gloves which formed part of the pontifical vestments. In war and in the chase gloves of leather, or with the backs armoured with articu lated iron plates, were early worn; yet in the Bayeux tapestry the warriors on either side fight ungloved. So far as the records go, there is no evidence to prove that gloves were in general use in England until the 13th century. It was in this century that ladies began to wear gloves as ornaments; they were of linen and some times reached to the elbow. It was, however, not till the 16th cen tury that Queen Elizabeth set the fashion for wearing them richly embroidered and jewelled.

Symbolical Uses.

Of the symbolical uses of the glove one of the most widespread during the middle ages was the practice of tendering a folded glove as a gage for waging one's law. The origin of this custom is probably not far to seek. The promise to fulfil a judgment of a court of law, a promise secured by the delivery of awed or gage, is one of the oldest of all enforceable contracts. This gage was originally a chattel of value, which had to be de posited at once by the defendant as security into his adversary's hand ; and that the glove became the formal symbol of such de posit is doubtless due to its being the most convenient loose object for the purpose.

Associated with this custom was the use of the glove in the wager of battle. The glove here was thrown down by the de fendant in open court as security that he would defend his cause in arms ; the accuser by picking it up accepted the challenge (see WAGER) . This form is still prescribed for the challenge of the king's champion at the coronation of English sovereigns, and was actually followed at that of George IV. (see CHAMPION).

The use of the glove as a pledge of fulfilment is exemplified also by the not infrequent practice of enfeoffing vassals by investing them with the glove; similarly the emperors symbolized by the bestowal of a glove the concession of the right to found a town or to establish markets, mints and the like. Conversely, fiefs were held by the render of presenting gloves to the sovereign. The most notable instance in England, however, is the grand serjeanty of finding for the king a glove for his right hand on coronation day, and supporting his right arm as long as he holds the sceptre.

Pontifical Gloves

are liturgical ornaments peculiar to the Western Church and proper only to the pope, the cardinals and bishops, though the right to wear them is often granted by the Holy See to abbots, cathedral dignitaries and other prelates. According to the present use the gloves are of silk and of the liturgical colour of the day, the edge of the opening ornamented with a narrow band of embroidery or the like, and the middle of the back with a cross. They may be worn only at the celebration of mass (except masses for the dead) and only until the ablution before the canon of the mass.

During the middle ages the occasions on which pontifical gloves were worn were not so carefully defined as now, the use varying in different churches. Nor were the liturgical colours prescribed. Liturgical gloves have not been worn by Anglican bishops since the Reforrnation, though they are occasionally represented as wearing them on their effigies.

Gloves made of thin indiarubber or of white cotton, which may be thoroughly and easily sterilized, are worn by many surgeons while performing operations.