Pax (liturgical object)
A wide range of materials were used, and the form of the pax was also variable but normally included a flat surface to be kissed.
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.
The pax gradually fell out of general use, though the Catholic Encyclopedia in 1911 said it was still practised when "prelates and princes" were involved, but "not to others except in rare cases established by custom".
[11] The pax board, as a substitute for the kiss of peace, is first mentioned in 1248 in the statutes of the Archbishop of York, and seems to have been an English invention, perhaps restricted to England until the next century.
By 1328 the post-mortem inventory of the possessions of Queen Clementia of Hungary, widow of King Louis X of France, included "ung portepais d'argent" ('a silver pax').
[12] Early texts of the major work Rationale divinorum officiorum by Guillaume Durand, Bishop of Mende in southern France,[13] which was circulating from 1286, do not mention the pax.
[15] Other evidence, including surviving paxes, shows it spread at least to Italy, Germany and Spain, and was probably standard in Western European churches by the Reformation.
The only exception were the Anabaptists, who instead kissed on meeting both in normal life and at services; this only stiffened the disdain felt by other Protestants.
No longer regarded as a general ceremony of reconciliation, but as one of greeting those deserving honour, it was now restricted to the clergy and the choir, as well as magistrates and male nobility.
[18] Another factor may have been that kissing the pax had clearly come to act as a substitute for receiving the Eucharist for many of the faithful, avoiding the need for fasting and other prescribed preparations for Holy Communion.
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.
"[24]On the other hand, a "ribald carol" where a female narrator recounts various flirtatious advances made at mass includes the verse: Paxes with elaborate metalwork framing an image in a medium that would withstand kissing and wiping are the sort that have been most likely to survive.
The inventory of the royal treasure of King Richard II of England lists many paxes among its nearly 1,200 items, including two of plain ungilded silver with red crosses, which Jenny Stratford suggests were for use in Lent.
[27] As a type of object that was not quite considered of top importance, the compositions in pax images were very often recycled from another medium such as prints or plaquettes.
In one parish a mass-book with a treasure binding was used, at others a small shield with a gentleman's coat of arms on, and an object showing "a nakyd man with the xij sighnes aboute him".
