page_title: Pax (liturgical object)
section_title: Cause of disputes
hierarchical_section_title: Pax (liturgical object) / Cause of disputes
caption_attribution_description: Pacificale: Christus als Weltenrichter. Johann Baptist Känischbauer von Hohenried (1668-1739). Wien, 1726. Gold, teilweise emailliert, Bergkristall, Glassteine. Inv. Nr. D 39. The Ecclesiastical Treasury (Geistliche Schatzkammer) in the Hofburg in Vienna.
context_page_description: The pax was an object used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance for the Kiss of Peace in the Catholic Mass. Direct kissing among the celebrants and congregation was replaced by each in turn kissing the pax, which was carried around to those present. The form of the pax was variable but normally included a flat surface to be kissed. Often the pax was held out with a long handle attached, and it seems to have been given a wipe with a cloth between each person. Some paxes are very elaborate and expensive objects, and most survivals fall into this class, but the great majority were probably very simple wood or brass pieces. It was usual to include an image, usually of or including the Virgin Mary or Jesus Christ.
  The pax began to replace actual kisses in the 13th century, apparently because of a range of concerns over the sexual, social and medical implications of actual kissing. It is first documented in England, and the 17th-century historian of the Mass, Cardinal Giovanni Bona, associated the introduction with the Franciscan Order. The person holding the pax said "Pax tecum" and received the response "Et cum spiritu tuo".
context_section_description: As earlier with the actual kiss, the pax was often the cause of bad feeling and sometimes actual violence because the order in which it was kissed, descending down the religious and social hierarchy, gave rise to disputes over precedence.  Geoffrey Chaucer in The Parson's Tale from his Canterbury Tales, wrote:
  And yet is there a private species of Pride that waits first to be greeted ere he will greet, although he is less worthy than that other is, indeed; and also he expects or desires to sit, or else to go before him in the way, or kiss the pax, or be incensed, or go to the offering before his neighbor, and such similar things, beyond what duty requires, indeed, but that he has his heart and his intent in such a proud desire to be made much of and honored before the people. 
  In The Wife of Bath's Tale Chaucer makes it clear that she was just such a person. Christine de Pisan complained of such behaviour, among women in particular, pointing out that the pax "is for the little people as much as the big ones".  She recommended just hanging the pax on the wall of the church "on a nail and let whoever wants to kiss it do so".  This was actually recommended by a synod in Seville in 1512, which said the pax should be fixed rather than carried round the church.  Thomas More also complained that "men fall at variance for kissing of the pax".
  The historian Eamon Duffy in his The Stripping of the Altars recounts that:
  In 1494 the wardens of the parish of All Saints, Stanyng, presented Joanna Dyaca for breaking the paxbrede by throwing it on the ground, "because another woman of the parish had kissed it before her." On All Saints Day 1522 Master John Browne of the parish of Theydon-Garnon in Essex, having kissed the pax-brede at the parish Mass, smashed it over the head of Richard Pond, the holy-water clerk who had tendered it to him, "causing streams of blood to run to the ground." Brown was enraged because the pax had first been offered to Francis Hamden and his wife Margery, despite the fact that the previous Sunday he had warned Pond, "Clerke, if thou here after givest not me the pax first I shall breke it on thy hedd."
  On the other hand, a "ribald carol" where a female narrator recounts various flirtatious advances made at mass includes the verse:
  "Jankin at the Agnus bered the pax-brede;
  He twinkled but said nout, and on my fot he trede
  Kyrieleison"
caption: Rococo pax of 1726, for the Imperial Chapel of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna; by this time paxes were largely out of use in ordinary churches
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon DIGITAL IXUS 800 IS", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:25 12:47:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x1001": "2816", "Image Tag 0x1002": "2112", "Image ExifOffset": "270", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2936", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5578", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/20", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:25 12:47:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:25 12:47:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "69/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2112", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2816", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2112000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "112640/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}