11 October: 10 facts about gloves

Today is the feast day of St Gomer of Lier, who is the patron saint of glovers. Here are 10 things you might not know about gloves:

1. People have been wearing them since antiquity. Linen gloves were found in Tutenkhamen’s tomb dating from 14th century BC and boxing gloves dating back to 120 AD were found in an ancient Roman fort in England.
2. In Medieval times, gloves became a symbol of wealth and power. They were worn by the nobility while poor people wore mittens. Knights would sometimes carry gloves belonging to their loved ones during tournaments, for luck.
3. Glovers in England didn’t have their own guild until the 15^th century. Before that, they were lumped together with bookbinders in the Dubbers or Bookbinders Guild. In France, glovers, or gantiers, had their own guild since the 13^th century. They made gloves from skin or fur, and in time also made perfumed gloves. People who made gloves knitted from silk had a separate guild, the bonnetiers.
4. Queen Elizabeth I started a fashion for richly embroidered and jewelled gloves. During audiences, she would put on and take off her gloves to draw attention to her beautiful hands.
5. In the 17^th century there was a craze for “limericks”, a type of glove made in Limerick, Ireland, from the skin of unborn calves.
6. Sending a pair of gloves to a woman was one way an English gentleman might propose marriage. If she wore his gloves in church the following Sunday, he’d know she had accepted.
7. Mittens are gloves which do not have separate sheaths for each finger. They keep hands warmer than gloves because less surface area is exposed to the cold. The earliest mittens known to archaeologists date to around 1000 AD and were found in Latvia, where mittens are part of the national costume. It’s thought mittens were probably worn much earlier than this, but since they are usually made from biodegradable material, they wouldn’t have been preserved.
8. “For the future... when the burglar goes a-burgling, a pair of gloves will form a necessary part of his outfit.” So said The Law Times in 1905, the first reference to criminals wearing gloves to hide fingerprints. In more recent times, a leather glove was an important piece of evidence in the O. J. Simpson murder case. The glove, allegedly used in the murder, was said by the defence to be too small for O.J. and hence proved him innocent. The prosecution argued that the glove shrank after being soaked in Blood.
9. Yeovil Town FC goes by the nickname the "Glovers".
10. Michael Jackson’s signature look included a single jewelled glove worn on his right hand.

 

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

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