Page:The Kiss and its History.djvu/119

Rh to precedence at church are, as we see, of long standing.

It seems also to have served as a sort of profane intermediary between lovers. When a young and beautiful girl kissed it she had close beside her a fine young fellow who waited impatiently to take it directly from her hand and lips. We read in one of Marot's poems:

Through the use of the osculatory, the well-known custom of gallants such as, from the Greek romances and Ovid, existed in ancient times, was revived—Huet calls it elegans urbanitatis genus—when the lover drank out of the goblet from the very place which the beloved one's lips had touched. Formerly a sort of pax was employed even in Danish churches. The Catholic priests showed the people "a picture in a book" (of course the picture of some saint), and this picture was kissed by the congregation; for which purpose a small fee termed "kiss-money" or "book-money" was handed to the parish clerk.