When did the handshake become a widely accepted form of greeting?

Shaking hands might seem like an age-old gesture, but there's evidence pointing back to ancient Assyria. A throne base from the reign of Shalmaneser III in the 9th century BCE depicts two figures locking hands. Similarly, the Iliad, dating to the 8th century BCE, recounts a scene where two characters ‘clasped each other's hands and pledged their faith.’ Fast forward a few centuries, and in As You Like It, Shakespeare described two characters who ‘shook hands and swore brothers.’ Despite this long history, the origins of handshaking might not be as ancient as it seems.

However,

Historians who have studied old etiquette manuals note that handshaking as we know it didn’t emerge until the mid-19th century. At that time, it was seen as a somewhat improper action meant only for friends [PDF]. So, if Shakespeare was writing about handshakes centuries earlier, what was the change?

Understanding the Handshake

According to Torbjörn Lundmark in his book Tales of Hi and Bye: Greeting and Parting Rituals Around the World, the confusion arises from varying definitions of the handshake. The early examples of handshakes were often linked to making agreements or settling disputes. For instance, Shalmaneser III's throne base depicts him honoring a treaty with the Babylonian king during a revolt. In the Iliad, Diomedes and Glaucus shook hands upon realizing they were 'guest-friends,' and Diomedes declared, 'Let’s not try to kill each other.' Shakespeare too referenced handshakes in the context of resolving conflict.

The modern handshake as a greeting is harder to pinpoint. Its roots are often traced back to the Quakers. Yet, as Dutch sociologist Herman Roodenburg, a leading expert on the history of handshaking, noted in A Cultural History of Gesture, 'More than in any other field, the study of gestures is one where historians must rely on a few scattered clues' [PDF].

One of the earliest indications he points to is a 16th-century German translation of the French author Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel. When one character meets Gargantua, Rabelais describes (in one modern English translation), 'he was greeted with a thousand caresses, a thousand embraces, a thousand good-days.' However, Roodenburg notes that the German translation from the 16th century includes mentions of handshaking. He suggests that if the translator adapted Rabelais’s work to suit his audience, this could signal an early tradition of handshaking.

Further evidence for the tradition of handshaking during this time comes from 1607. The author James Cleland, who was likely a Scotsman residing in England, stated that instead of engaging in practices like bowing down to people’s shoes or kissing hands, he preferred to 'retaine our good olde Scottish shaking of the two right hands togither at meeting with an vncouered head' [PDF].

Handshaking—Back to the Future

A common theory suggests that Cleland’s criticism of bowing was in fact a desire to return to a possibly ancient (though scarcely documented) method of greeting in Europe. Over time, handshaking was replaced by more 'hierarchical' forms of greeting, such as bowing. According to Roodenburg, handshaking survived in specific contexts, such as in Dutch towns, where it was used to reconcile after conflicts. Around the same time, the Quakers, who valued equality, also embraced the handshake. As societal hierarchies weakened, the handshake re-emerged as a standard form of greeting among equals—a practice that continues today.

Not everyone was enamored with the handshake, though. In December 1884, an article remarked, 'The usage has found its way into other nations, but so contrary is it to their instinct, that, in France, for example, a society has been recently formed to abolish ' le shake-hands ' as a vulgar English innovation.'

As for why handshakes were considered a proper greeting, rather than another gesture, the most widely accepted explanation is that it renders the right hand temporarily incapable of holding a weapon. In the 19th century, it was considered impolite to shake hands without first removing gloves, and an apology was expected immediately afterward. One text from 1870 suggests that 'this idea may also be a lingering remnant of the old belief that a glove could hide a weapon.'

Unfortunately, in a world where obscure Rabelais translations offer crucial insights, the true reason may remain forever unknown.