Turning back to mediæval history, we find an amusing incident in the career of Charles the Simple, of France. The viking Rollo, having been banished from Norway by Harold, proceeded southward to conquer a new domain. Entering the mouth of the Seine, he took possession of Rouen, where he spent the winter of each year, employing the summer in ravaging France, till at last the king, Charles the Simple, as the only hope of obtaining peace, promised to give him the province of Neustria as a fief, provided he would become a Christian.
Rollo was baptized at Rouen, in 912. He had then to pay homage to King Charles by kneeling before him, kissing his foot, and swearing to pay him allegiance. Rollo took the oath, but nothing would induce him to perform the rest of the ceremony, and he appointed one of his followers to do homage in his stead. The Northman, as proud as his master, wilfully misunderstood, and, instead of kneeling, lifted the king’s foot up to reach his mouth, so as to upset king and throne together, amid the rude laughter of his countrymen.
When the famous crusade of Godfrey de Bouillon, early in the eleventh century, was nearing its successful issue, Tancred, with a few other knights, was the first to come in sight of Jerusalem. When the Crusaders beheld the Holy City, the object of all their hopes and toils, they all at once fell down on their knees, weeping and giving thanks, and even kissing the sacred earth, and, as they rose, hymns of praise were sung by the whole army. So when Columbus and his followers stepped on the beach of San Salvador, all knelt down, reverently kissing the ground, with tears and thanks to God.
Jean Paul Frederic Richter, in his “Autobiography,” thus describes a thrilling event in his life’s history:
As earlier in life, on the opposite church-bench, so I could but fall in love with Catharine Bärin, as she sat always above me on the school-bench, with her pretty, round, red, smallpox-marked face,—her lightning eyes,—the pretty hastiness with which she spoke and ran. In the school carnival, that took in the whole forenoon succeeding fast nights, and consisted in dancing and playing, I had the joy to perform the irregular hop dance, that preceded the regular, with her. In the play, “How does your neighbor please you?” where upon an affirmative answer they are ordered to kiss, and upon a contrary there is a calling out, and in the midst of accolades all change places, I ran always near her. The blows were like gold-beaters’ by which the pure gold of my love was beaten out, and a continual change of places, as she always forbid me the court, and I always called her to the court, was managed.
All these malicious occurrences (desertiones malitiosæ) could not deprive me of the blessedness of meeting her daily, when with her snow-white apron and her snow-white cap she ran over the long bridge opposite the parsonage window, out of which I was looking. To catch her, not to say, but to give her something sweet, a mouthful of fruit, to run quickly through the parsonage court, down the little steps, and arrest her in her flight, my conscience would never permit; but I enjoyed enough to see her from the window upon the bridge, and I think it was near enough for me to stand, as I usually did, with my heart behind a long seeing and hearing trumpet. Distance injures true love less than nearness. Could I upon the planet Venus discover the goddess Venus, while in the distance its charms were so enchanting, I should have warmly loved it, and without hesitation chosen to revere it as my morning and evening star.
In the mean time I have the satisfaction to draw all those, who expect in Schwarzenbach a repetition of the Joditz love, from their error, and inform them that it came to something. On a winter evening, when my princess’s collection of sweet gifts was prepared, and needed only a receiver, the pastor’s son, who among all my school companions was the worst, persuaded me, when a visit from the chaplain occupied my father, to leave the parsonage while it was dark, to pass the bridge, and venture, which I had never done, into the house where the beloved dwelt with her poor grandmother up in a little corner chamber. We entered a little ale-house underneath. Whether Catharine happened to be there, or whether the rascal, under the pretence of a message, allured her down upon the middle of the steps, or, in short, how it happened that I found her there, has become only a dreamy recollection; for the sudden lightning of the present darkened all that went behind. As violently as if I had been a robber, I first pressed upon her my present of sweetmeats, and then I, who in Joditz never could reach the heaven of a first kiss, and never even dared to touch the beloved hand, I, for the first time, held a beloved being upon my heart and lips. I have nothing further to say, but that it was the one pearl of a minute, that was never repeated; a whole longing past and a dreaming future were united in one moment, and in the darkness behind my closed eyes the fireworks of a whole life were evolved in a glance. Ah, I have never forgotten it,—the ineffaceable moment!
I returned like a clairvoyant from heaven again to earth, and remarked only that in this second Christmas festival Ruprecht[9] did not precede, but followed it, for on my way home I met a messenger coming for me, and was severely scolded for running away. Usually after such warm silver beams of a blessed sun there falls a closing, stormy gust. What was its effect on me? The stream of words could not drain my paradise,—for does it not bloom even to-day around and forth from my pen?
It was, as I have said, the first kiss, and, as I believe, will be the last; for I shall not, probably, although she lives yet, journey to Schwarzenbach to give a second. As usual, during my whole Schwarzenbach life I was perfectly contented with my telegraphic love, which yet sustained and kept itself alive without any answering telegram. But truly no one could blame her less than I that she was silent at that time, or that she continues so now after the death of her husband; for later, in stranger loves and hearts, I have always been slow to speak. It did not help me that I stood with ready face and attractive outward appearance; all corporeal charms must be placed over the foil of the spiritual before they can sufficiently shine and kindle and dazzle. But this was the cause of failure in my innocent love-time, that without any intercourse with the beloved, without conversation or introduction, I displayed my whole love bursting from the dry exterior, and stood before her like the Judas-tree, in full blossom, but without branch or leaf.
An incident previously referred to has been thus embodied in verse:
The peculiar tendency of the Christian religion to encourage honor towards all men, as men, to foster and develop the softer affections, and, in the trying condition of the early Church, to make its members intimately known one to another, and unite them in the closest bonds, led to the observance of kissing as an accompaniment of that social worship which took its origin in the very cradle of our religion. Hence the exhortation of St. Paul, “Salute one another with a holy kiss;” and the brethren followed the injunction literally. It was called signaculum orationis, the soul of prayer; and was a symbol of that mutual forgiveness and reconciliation which the Church required as an essential condition to admission to its sacraments. Tertullian, Origen, and Athenagoras mention it; and Dr. Milner cites the Apostolical Constitutions to show the manner in which the ceremony was performed:
“Let the bishop salute the church and say, ‘The peace of God be with you all;’ And let the people answer, ‘And with thy spirit.’ Then let the deacon say to all, ‘Salute one another with a holy kiss and let the clergy kiss the bishop, and the laymen the laymen, and the women the women.”
This primitive fraternal embrace appears to have been observed as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the pax (osculatorium, porte-paix, or pax brede) introduced, as it was at this period that the sexes began to mingle together in the low mass.
The use of the pax in England was prescribed by the royal commissioners of Edward VI. The Injunctions published at Doncaster, in 1548, ordain that:
“The clarke shall bring down the paxe, and standing without the church door, shall say loudly to the people these words, ‘This is a token of joyful peace which is betwixt God and men’s conscience; Christ alone is the peace-maker, which straitly commands peace between brother and brother. And so long as ye shall use these ceremonies, so long shall ye use these significations.’”
Agnes Strickland, in her account of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, says:
“Then the bishop began the mass, the epistle being read first in Latin and then in English, the gospel the same,—the book being sent to the queen, who kissed the gospel. She then went to the altar to make her second offering, three unsheathed swords being borne before her, and one in the scabbard. The queen, kneeling, put money in the basin, and kissed the chalice; and then and there certain words were read to her grace. She retired to her seat again during the consecration, and kissed the pax.”[10]
In this country, the ceremonies of Lent and of Easter belong to the Church alone, but in most other lands these occasions have always borne both a civil and a political relation to society.
In former times royalty itself led the Lenten solemnities, and we read of monarchs washing the feet of beggars, in imitation of Christ, who washed the feet of his disciples. This ceremony, which was regularly practised by the kings and queens of England in ancient times, occurred upon Maundy-Thursday. They washed and kissed the feet of as many poor people as they themselves numbered in years, and bestowed a gift, or maundy, upon each.
Queen Elizabeth performed this royal duty at Greenwich when she was thirty-nine years old, on which occasion the feet of thirty-nine poor persons were first washed by the yeomen of the laundry with warm water and sweet herbs, afterwards by the sub-almoner, and lastly by the queen herself; the person who washed making each time a cross upon the pauper’s foot, above the toes, and kissing it. This ceremony was performed by the queen kneeling, being attended by thirty-nine ladies and gentlemen. Clothes, victuals, and money were then distributed among the poor.
The last of the English monarchs who performed this office in person was James II., and it was afterwards performed by the almoner. On the 5th of April, 1731, it being Maundy-Thursday, and the king in his forty-eighth year, there were distributed at the banqueting-house, Whitehall, to forty-eight poor men and the same number of poor women, boiled beef and shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, for dinner; after that large wooden platters of fish and loaves, the fish being undressed,—twelve red herrings and twelve white herrings, and four half quartern loaves. Each person had one platter of these provisions, and after that were distributed among them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leathern bags filled with silver and copper coins, to each about four pounds in value. The washing of feet was performed by his Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, who was also Lord High Almoner.
Cardinal Wolsey, in 1530, made his maundy at Peterborough Abbey, where upon Maundy-Thursday, in our Lady’s Chapel, he washed and kissed the feet of fifty-nine poor men, “and, after he had wiped them, he gave every one of the said poor men twelve pence in money, three ells of good canvas to make them shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cast of red herrings and three white herrings, and one of these had two shillings.”
This ancient custom is now no longer observed, except in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall, where the poor still receive their gifts from the royal bounty.
Soon after the accession of King Alfonso to the throne of Spain, he performed the emblematic ceremony of washing the apostles’ feet, showing that the royal custom is not obsolete in Madrid, at least. A witness, after describing the preliminaries, says:
“Men and women in a compact mass of silk and velvet, broadcloth and gold lace, crowded the ‘Hall of the Columns,’ where the ceremony was to take place, the spectators, more than eight hundred of whom were ladies, standing all round, jammed upon benches, row upon row, leaving barely the most limited space open for the performers. Within this space the twelve paupers, or apostles, sat on a settee, each of them with his best foot and leg bare to the knee, and as well ‘prepared’ for the occasion as by dint of much soap and water could be contrived; the king in his grand uniform, with a towel tied around him, apron-wise, followed by Cardinal Moreno, Archbishop of Valladolid, in his scarlet robes and skull-cap, and behind and all around them a great staff of grandees and marshals, an array of golden uniforms only distinguishable from the no less sumptuous liveries of the court menials by the stars, crosses, cordons, and scarfs of their chivalrous orders. The cardinal went first, and sprinkled a few drops of perfumed water over each of the bare feet in succession; the king came after, kneeling before each foot, rubbing it slightly with his towel, then stooping upon it as if he meant to kiss it. The ceremony did not take many minutes. The twelve men then got up; they were marshalled in great pomp round the hall, and seated in a row on one side of the table, with their faces to the spectators, in the order observed in Leonardo da Vinci’s grand picture of the Last Supper.”
Mr. D’Israeli, in his “Curiosities of Literature,” thus summarizes the historical notices of M. Morin, a French Academician, upon the custom of kissing hands:
“This custom is not only very ancient, and nearly universal, but has been alike participated by religion and society.
“To begin with religion. From the remotest times men saluted the sun, moon, and stars, by kissing the hand. Job assures us that he was never given to this superstition (xxxi. 27). The same honor was rendered to Baal (1 Kings xviii.). Other instances might be adduced.
“We now pass to Greece. There all foreign superstitions were received. Lucian, after having mentioned various sorts of sacrifices which the rich offered the gods, adds that the poor adored them by the simpler compliment of kissing their hands. That author gives an anecdote of Demosthenes which shows this custom. When a prisoner to the soldiers of Antipater, he asked to enter a temple. When he entered, he touched his mouth with his hands, which the guards took for an act of religion. He did it, however, more securely to swallow the poison he had prepared for such an occasion. Lucian mentions other instances.
“From the Greeks it passed to the Romans. Pliny places it amongst those ancient customs of which they were ignorant of the origin or the reason. Persons were treated as atheists who would not kiss their hands when they entered a temple. When Apuleius mentions Psyche, he says she was so beautiful that they adored her as Venus, in kissing the right hand.
“This ceremonial action rendered respectable the earliest institutions of Christianity. It was a custom with the primeval bishops to give their hands to be kissed by the ministers who served at the altar.
“This custom, however, as a religious rite, declined with paganism.
“In society our ingenious Academician considers the custom of kissing hands as essential to its welfare. It is a mute form which expresses reconciliation, which entreats favors, or which thanks for those received. It is a universal language, intelligible without an interpreter, which doubtless preceded writing, and perhaps speech itself.
“Solomon says of the flatterers and suppliants of his time, that they ceased not to kiss the hands of their patrons till they had obtained the favors which they solicited. In Homer we see Priam kissing the hands and embracing the knees of Achilles while he supplicates for the body of Hector.
“This custom prevailed in ancient Rome, but it varied. In the first ages of the republic it seems to have been only practised by inferiors to their superiors: equals gave their hands and embraced. In the progress of time, even the soldiers refused to show this mark of respect to their generals; and their kissing the hand of Cato when he was obliged to quit them was regarded as an extraordinary circumstance, at a period of such refinement. The great respect paid to the tribunes, consuls, and dictators obliged individuals to live with them in a more distant and respectful manner, and, instead of embracing them as they did formerly, they considered themselves as fortunate if allowed to kiss their hands. Under the emperors, kissing hands became an essential duty, even for the great themselves; inferior courtiers were obliged to be content to adore the purple by kneeling, touching the robe of the emperor by the right hand, and carrying it to the mouth. Even this was thought too free; and at length they saluted the emperor at a distance by kissing their hands, in the same manner as when they adored their gods.
“It is superfluous to trace this custom in every country where it exists. It is practised in every known country, in respect of sovereigns and superiors, even amongst the negroes and inhabitants of the New World. Cortez found it established at Mexico, where more than a thousand lords saluted him, in touching the earth with their hands, which they afterwards carried to their mouths.
“Thus, whether the custom of salutation is practised by kissing the hands of others from respect, or in bringing one’s own to the mouth, it is of all customs the most universal. M. Morin concludes that this practice is now become too gross a familiarity, and it is considered as a meanness to kiss the hand of those with whom we are in habits of intercourse; and he prettily observes that this custom would be entirely lost if lovers were not solicitous to preserve it in all its full power.”
The mistletoe, which has so many mystic associations connected with it, is believed to be propagated in its natural state by the missel-thrush, which feeds upon its berries. It was long thought impossible to propagate it artificially; but this object has been attained by bruising the berries, and, by means of their viscidity, causing them to adhere to the bark of fruit-trees, where they readily germinate and take root. The growth of the mistletoe on the oak is now of extremely rare occurrence, but in the orchards of the west-midland counties of England, such as the shires of Gloucester and Worcester, the plant flourishes in great frequency and luxuriance on the apple-trees. Large quantities are annually cut at the Christmas season, and despatched to London and other places, where they are extensively used for the decoration of houses and shops. The special custom connected with the mistletoe on Christmas Eve, an indubitable relic of the days of Druidism, handed down through a long course of centuries, must be familiar to all of our readers. A branch of the mystic plant is suspended from the wall or ceiling, and any one of the fair sex who, either from inadvertence, or, as possibly may be insinuated, on purpose, passes beneath the sacred spray, incurs the penalty of being then and there kissed by any lord of the creation who chooses to avail himself of the privilege.
Balder, the Apollo of Scandinavian mythology, was killed by a mistletoe arrow given to the blind Höder by Loki, the god of mischief, and potentate of our earth. Balder was restored to life, but the mistletoe was placed in future under the care of Friga, and was never again to be an instrument of evil till it touched the earth, the empire of Loki. Hence is it always suspended from ceilings. And when persons of opposite sexes pass under it, they give each other the kiss of peace and love, in the full assurance that the epiphyte is no longer an instrument of mischief.
In the year 1602, when the Spaniards were inciting the Irish chieftains to harass the English authorities, Cormac MacCarthy held, among other dependencies, the castle of Blarney, and had concluded an armistice with the Lord-President on condition of surrendering this fort to an English garrison. Day after day did his lordship look for the fulfilment of the compact, while the Irish Pozzo di Borgo, as loath to part with his stronghold as Russia to relinquish the Dardanelles, kept protocolizing with soft promises and delusive delays, until at last Carew became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth’s ministers, and Blarney talk proverbial.
A popular tradition attributes to the Blarney Stone the power of endowing whoever kisses it with the sweet, persuasive, wheedling eloquence so perceptible in the language of the Cork people, and which is generally termed Blarney. This is the true meaning of the word, and not, as some writers have supposed, a faculty of deviating from veracity with an unblushing countenance whenever it may be convenient. The curious traveller will seek in vain the real stone, unless he allows himself to be lowered from the northern angle of the lofty castle, when he will discover cover it about twenty feet from the top, with the inscription—Cormac MacCarthy fortis me fieri fecit, A.D. 1446.
As the kissing of this would be somewhat difficult, the candidate for Blarney honors will be glad to know that at the summit, and within easy access, is another real stone, bearing the date of 1703. A song published in the “Reliques of Father Prout” contains an allusion to this marvellous relic:
Buckle, in his “History of Civilization in England,” says:
“Some questions had been raised as to the propriety of kissing the Pope’s toe, and even theologians had their doubts touching so singular a ceremony. But this difficulty has been set at rest by Matthew of Westminster, who explains the true origin of this custom. He says that formerly it was usual to kiss the hand of his Holiness, but that towards the end of the eighth century a certain lewd woman, in making an offering to the Pope, not only kissed his hand, but also pressed it. The Pope,—his name was Leo,—seeing the danger, cut off his hand, and thus escaped the contamination to which he had been exposed. Since that time, the precaution has been taken of kissing the Pope’s toe, instead of his hand. And, lest any one should doubt the accuracy of this account, the historian assures us that the hand, which had been cut off five or six hundred years before, still existed in Rome; and was indeed a standing miracle, since it was preserved in the Lateran in its original state, free from corruption. And, as some readers might wish to be informed respecting the Lateran itself, where the hand was kept, this also is considered by the historian, in another part of his great work, where he traces it back to the Emperor Nero. For it is said that this wicked persecutor of the faith on one occasion vomited a frog covered with blood, which he believed to be his own progeny, and, therefore, caused it to be shut up in a vault, where it remained hidden for some time. Now, in the Latin language latente means hidden, and rana means a frog; so that by putting these two words together we have the origin of the Lateran, which, in fact, was built where the frog was found.”
Punch, the London Charivari, who is no respecter of persons, and who strikes right and left with unhesitating freedom, levelled the following characteristic squib at Pius IX. during the famous Gladstone and Manning controversy:
In “Pen-Pictures of Europe,” Elizabeth Peake says, speaking of St. Peter’s Church at Rome:
“In contrast with the beauty and grandeur of the interior is the insignificant-looking bronze statue of what they call St. Peter, seated in a chair of white marble. Some one remarked that it had been in ancient times a statue of Jupiter. ‘Jupiter,’ I exclaimed, ‘the Jupiter of the old Romans? Never!’ While I stood wondering at the unaccountable vagaries of mankind in general, and of artists in particular, and of the meaning of the word taste, several persons passed along and kissed the foot of the statue, the toes of which are actually worn away with kissing, and the big toe, what is left of it, looks bright as gold....
“Crowds of people were walking round in the nave, looking at the pictures and statues; crowds stood at the gate of the chapel, looking in through the gate and railing, listening to the music; and all grades filed along by the statue of St. Peter, kneeling, then rising and kissing his toe. The peasants wiped off the toe with their hands or sleeves, and then kissed it; others carefully wiped it with their handkerchiefs both before and after kissing it.”