A LIMB OF THE LAW, to a portion of whose Query, in No. 2. (p. 29.), the
above is intended as a reply, may consult, on the symbolism of the Hand
and Glove, _Grimm Deutsches Rechtsaltherthümer_, pp. 137. and 152, and
on the symbolical use of white in judicial proceedings, and the after
feastings consequent thereon, pp. 137. 381. and 869. of the same learned
work.
[On this subject we have received a communication from F.G.S., referring
to Brand's _Popular Antiquities_, vol. ii. p. 79, ed. 1841, for a
passage from Fuller's _Mixed Contemplations_, London, 1660, which proves
the existence of the practice at the time; and to another in Clavell's
_Recantation of an Ill-led Life_, London, 1634, to show that prisoners,
who received pardon after condemnation, were accustomed to present
gloves to the judges:--
"Those pardoned men who taste their prince's loves, (As married to
new life) do give you gloves."]
Mr. Editor,--"Anciently it was prohibited the Judges to wear gloves on
the bench; and at present in the stables of most princes it is not safe
going in without pulling off the gloves."--Chambers' _Cyclopaedia_, A.D.
MDCCXLI.
Was the presentation of the gloves a sign that the Judge was not
required to sit upon the Bench--their colour significant that there
would be no occasion for capital punishment? Embroidered gloves
were introduced about the year 1580 into England.
Or were gloves proscribed as the remembrances of the gauntlet cast down
as a challenge? "This is the form of a trial by battle; a trial which
the tenant or defendant in a writ of right has it in his election at
this day to demand, and which was the only decision of such writ of
right after the Conquest, till Henry II, by consent of Parliament,
introduced the _Grand Assise_, a peculiar species of trial by
jury."--Blackstone, _Commentaries_, vol. iii. p. 340. Perhaps after all
it was only an allusion to the white hand of Justice, as seems probably
from the expression _Maiden_-Assize.
Yours, &c. M.W.
Nov. 17. 1849.
P.S. Perhaps the "Lady-bird" in Suffolk derives its episcopal title,
alluded to by LEGOUR, from appearing in June, in which month falls the
Festival of St. Barnabas.
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