The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1902-05-30
KISSING THE BOOK.
\ RELIC OF THE TIME WHEN KISSING
WAS GENERAL TN MERRY ENGLAND.

WAS GENERAL IN MERRY ENGLAND.
Sir Francis Jeune and Mr.. Justice
Gorell Barnes have had posted outside
the two courts of the Probate, Divorce,
and Admiralty Division notices to wit
nesses calling their attention to the
fact that they may be sworn in the
Scotch manner before giving evidence.
That is to say, they may be sworn
with uplifted hand repeating solemn
invocation to the Deity, instead of TAX
ing a book and kissing it after listen
ing to form repeated by a minor Of
fetal of the court. The notice to
which we refer is repeated outside one
of the courts of the Chancery Division
and we have every hope that it may
become universal.
We have for many years contended
that the oath 10y kissing book has
nothing to commend it: while it is mas
ty and may become a means Of propa-
CATION Of disease; and we have seen
with regret that the statutory permis-
sion to swear in the Scotch fashion
was, as rule, not known by witnesses
and frequently, also, that Judges, Cor
oners, and Magistrates were ignorant
of it.
The form of swearing by kissing a
book is purely one of custom. There
is no direct authority for it in any act
of Parliament, or rule, or book of prac-
tice. The date also of its introduction
is unknown, but this is not because it
has been lost in the mists of antiquity,
for it is fairly certain that, so recently
as at the end of the seventeenth cen
tury, if the form existed it was not in
any general use. 1t has been pointed
out that Coke in his Institutes makes
no mention of kissing the book but
writes of the corporal oath" as thus
named because the witness touched
with his hand portion of the Scrip
lures, and this aspect of the oath no
doubt survives in the familiar warning
of the usher to the witness to remove
the glove before taking the Testament
for the purpose of kissing it. 1t is al
so observed that in the Book of
Oaths," of which an edition was pub
lished in 1888, there is no mention of
kissing a hook How the kissing orig
mated is, we believe, almost as much
a matter of speculation as is the date
at which it became frequent or uni
versal.
The laying on the Gospels in swear
ing is, no doubt, of a great antiquity,
while the laying of the hand on the
altar of deity in invoking the deity
to witness a statement or promise is
older than the Gospels. The laying
of the hand on the Gospels has its par
allel in other counties be ,ides Eng
land. The kissing of the book is, how
ever, we believe peculiar to England,
or to England and Ireland, and it is
not quite easy to assign its origin to
the kissing of relics when we appar.
entity find it introduced in England af-
ter all veneration for relics had been
swept away and made illegal.
1t is worth noting that English peo-
pie were more addicted to kissing once
than they are now. Kissing as form
of salutat;on was so common among
them that it excited the interest and
amusement of foreigners. Erasmus re-
fers to it and Hungarian gentleman
who visited London and moved in
good society in 1868 was much struck
with the way in which men kissed la
dies when they greeted them where
Hungarians would have shaken hands.
Even Frenchmen in the Middle Ages
held kissing as popularity of the
English nation, much as we remark
upon it now among the French. 1t
is, therefore, at least possible that the
kiss bestowed upon the book in taking
an oath may have been not so much
a kiss of veneration as tom of salu-
tation or acknowledge gment by bodily
contact, somewhat more cercmonious
than manual contact, but still not as
socated with any great feeling of sol
cmnity. London Lancet.