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Kissing your Thumb
Just a curious tidbit. The
oath traditionally given in court to "tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth" is believed to have originated in Old English
and seems to have been a part of English trials as early as the 13th
century. In spite of taking an oath to tell the truth, there were no
actual codified penalties for perjury, or lying under oath until the
mid-16th century. It was believed that the potential punishment from God
was sufficient to prevent most witnesses from breaking their solemn
oath.
The Bible used in the court
room was discounted by some as merely the "law Bible" that somehow it
did not count as seriously as a holy and consecrated Bible used in the
Mass. Therefore one of the tricks that could be used was to kiss your
thumb rather than the Bible itself. The Irish writer James Johnson
wrote:
"Remember,
witness! that, in swearing by the Holy Evangelist, you to take most
special care, not to kiss the cross that is on the book, but your thumb
that is on the cross -and then you are neither to tell the whole truth,
nor any part of the truth."
Officers of the court had to
keep a sharp eye on tricky witnesses, although in this case a kindly
clerk gave a humorous excuse for a witness at the Tralee Assize:
The Irish
writer William Carleton related a story in which the local church rather
than the court was called upon to solve a case of robbery and took a
preventative action: "The
witness now had to swear again and many 'appeared ready to sink into the
earth... many of them became almost unable to stand; and altogether the
state of trepidation and terror in which they stood, was strikingly wild
and extraordinary." |