Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols - Adele Nozedar - Страница 127

Freemasons sometimes wear white gloves, not only as a symbol of work to be done, but also to show purity of thought. White gloves are worn for the same reasons in the Catholic Church. They are given to bishops and kings after their investiture, and here they are a reminder of newborn purity. Gloves—especially the highly ornamented kind—are a relatively luxurious item of clothing, emblems of the nobility who used gauntlets as part of the equipment associated with falconry. Gloves on heraldic shields usually indicate some connection with hunting birds.

To “throw down the gauntlet” is still used as a synonym for a challenge, dating back to the days of chivalry, where it was a politer version of a slap but hardly any less shocking.