Redeeming Forfeits, a.k.a. Pledges

• Donald Walker's 1837 Games and Sports describes a complete process from beginning to end
• George Arnold's 1858 The Sociable describes a brief ritual
• G. H. Sandison's 1895 How to Behave and Amuse describes the practice briefly:
  

  Redeeming Forfeits.
  The girl who is to name the penalty by which the forfeit must be redeemed lays her face on the lap of another who sits on a chair, while a third, standing behind, holds the article over her head and asks:
       "Here is a forfeit, a very fine forfeit; what shall be done to redeem it?"
       "Is it fine or superfine?" (i. e., does it belong to a gentleman or to a lady.)
  The sentence is then declared.
  Another formula, used in the Middle and Southern States, is: "Heavy, heavy, what hangs over you?"
  The German usage is nearly the same, the question being: "Judge, what is your sentence, what shall he do whose pledge I have in my hand?" Any proper penalty may be named.

• In literature, forfeits are explained in a footnote to an 1800 edition of Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield from 1766 (a novel that also mentions "Questions and Commands")
• Also, Rachel Revel's 1825 Winter Evening Pastimes describes a brief ritual, and Evening Amusements; or, A New Book of Games and Forfeits, published in 1828 by Dean and Munday, does too. In both cases, a game of forfeits is associated specifically with Christmas, but the latter source includes an illustration very like the ritual described in Sandison (1895) without Christmas associations

• Lists of pénitences in French: Ducœurjoly (1801) [see content warning about its final chapters], Le Manuel des sorciers (1802; the 1st ed. has none), Ferra (1811)--probably based on Le Manuel des sorciers, which may have a relationship to Ducœurjoly, who also had a book of magic tricks--Enfantin/Belair (1812), Tardieu-Denesle (1817), Audot (1818), Celnart (1830), Bonneveine (1865), Docx (1894), Valaincourt (1903), and Idées de jeux (2021). A large (~25MB) PDF of Fabre d'Olivet (1801) also includes many forfeits. Contemporary illustrations exist in Le Bon Genre for some pénitences, e.g. "Le Baiser à la capucine" (illustration) and "Le Pont d'amour" (illustration), as well as games such as "Colin-maillard assis" (illustration--see also Fragonard's multiple paintings featuring "Colin-maillard," not to mention "La Main chaude" and more)
• List of Pfänderstrafen in German: Frölich (1828)
• Lists of penances in English: Revel (1825), Dean and Munday (1828), Leslie (1831), Child (1833), Walker (1837), "Puzzlewell" (1849) [related to "Puzzlewell" (1794) which has no forfeits], Chambers (1850), Uncle John (1851) [and 1854], Waterman (1853), Bogue (1854) [content warning for racism in its unrelated chapter on "Acting Charades"; North American audiences may find especially interesting that this source calls one possible penance "The Telegraphic Message"--i.e. "The Telephone Game" but conceived in contemporary terms], Arnold (1858), Dalton (1861), Optic (1863), Dick & Fitzgerald (1864), Smith (1867), Gilbert (1874), Clarke (1881), Gomme (1894) [a large collection of children's games and related folklore], White (1896), Maclagan (1901) [which is especially notable for collecting Scottish forfeits], Northrop (1901), Canfield (1907), Blain (1909), Hollister (1917), Foulsham & Co (1925), Clark (1925) [notably, a source that says forfeits "Nowadays ... do not play as important a part in the entertainment as they once did"], Grey (1955) [which suggests only a few penances and advises against forfeits at a point when players are still feeling shy], The Guardian (2008)
• List of "prendas," sentencias, or penitencias in Spanish: Mariano de Rementería y Fica (1839), which adapts Celnart; R.C. (1853), which adapts sources in French but also "Aficionado"'s Lícito recreo casero from 1792, which has a reprinted edition from 1816; Don Francisco Fernandez Villabrille (1864); Antonio Machado y Álvarez (1884); "Aficionado" (1903) and "Aficionado" (1918), both also adapting yet meaningfully different from the 1816 collection attributed to "Aficionado," which is presumably closer to the 1792 edition

• Innocenzo Ringhieri's hundred games published in 1551 discuss pledges explicitly, e.g. in "The Game of the Labyrinth" and "The Game of Graces". And every game includes a list of thought-provoking questions that players could answer that, according to George McClure's Parlour Games and the Public Life of Women in Renaissance Italy, were the actual means of redeeming forfeits.
• Girolamo Bargagli's discussion of penances in 1572 is summarized by Thomas Frederick Crane in Italian Social Customs of the Sixteenth Century, and Their Influence on the Literatures of Europe (1920), giving special attention to storytelling as a penance
• Text and translation of Charles Sorel's 1643 discussion of pledges, in which being tasked with giving someone a kiss seems typical
• In a footnote published ca. 1696 to explain a game of "Fish" that had been played ca. 1643, Pierre Richelet describes the process of redeeming forfeits in terms that explain very precisely why it's called le gage touché in French--it's because the forfeited item is literally touched:

  Aprés on joüe pour r'avoir les gages. La Démoiselle, entre les mains de qui on les a mis & qui les tient sous son tablier, dit à son voisin ou à sa voisine, ordonnez sur le gage que je touche, & le voisin ou la voisine commande quelque chose de galant à celui à qui est le gage touché, comme de chanter, de danser, ou de faire quelque autre petite galanterie.

  Afterwards everyone plays to reclaim forfeits. The young lady, in whose hands they have been placed and who holds them under her apron, says to her neighbor, give an order regarding the forfeit that I am touching, and the neighbor orders something gallant of the one to whom belongs the touched forfeit, such as singing, dancing, or doing some other little gallantry.

• In Eustache le Noble's 1697 story sequence Le Gage touché, a group of people redeem pledges such as a case, a golden die, a timepiece, a crystal vial--all given up during a series of games such as "Bull's Foot"--by each narrating long adventures (including the fairy tale, "L'Oiseau de verité"). This sequence was loosely translated / edited / abridged as Winter Evening Tales, &c. in 1731 (incidentally replacing "Bull's Foot" with the game "Questions and Commands"--perhaps an odd choice for the translator to make, because the kinds of commands described elsewhere in 1685 already resemble non-literary penances/forfeits)
• In a "Discours historique et critique à l'occasion de la tragédie des Guèbres," a preface to his play, Voltaire describes how two 17th C. texts--the play Athalie by Racine and the poem "La Pucelle" by Chapelain--had been used by their detractors at the time as penances in parlor games, making players read portions of them out loud, although Voltaire himself thought Athalie was eventually understood to be a masterpiece
• Two excerpts and translations from the Mémoires secrets give examples of poems composed as penances after playing parlor games in 1772 (one poem is labeled a fairy tale, but the poem itself plays with the fact that it's not)
• Text and translation of Marc Antoine René de Voyer's 1779 discussion of pledges, in which being tasked with various forms of artistic and literary production seems typical (notably including enigmas, rebuses, etc., not unlike the poetic riddle that Voltaire supposedly offered to redeem a forfeit: "Five vowels, one consonant, / In French compose my name, / And I wear on my person / That which writes it without a pencil"--oiseau)
• In 1784, The Wit's Magazine published humorist G.M. Woodward's "Christmas Gambols," a short anecdote/essay that depicts both the ritual for redeeming forfeits, multiple penalties involving kisses, and the reaction of someone who felt he'd been made a fool of

Note that Higgins (1854) calls forfeits "stupid." In 1784, G.M. Woodward's country kinsman was enraged by a kissing forfeit, and Sorel (1643), Ferra (1811), Waterman (1853), and Bogue (1854) all make it clear penances could involve embarrassment, flirting, and light physical contact--above all, kisses--presumably explaining why Enfantin (1812) praised "The Impromptu Tale" for its strong potential to yield pledges while noting older people included in a mixed group might not be subject to them. Dislike and avoidance even of purely literary/artistic penances is also a minor theme of the fictional frame story of a 1673 story sequence by François Hédelin Aubignac, translated here.

Goethe's autobiography (written 1811-1833) explains his feelings about forfeits at length:

Those little games, as they are called, which are more or less ingenious, and by which a joyous young circle is collected and combined, depend in a great measure upon forfeits, in the calling in of which kisses have no small value. I had resolved, once for all, not to kiss, and as every want or impediment stimulates us to an activity to which we should otherwise not feel inclined, I exerted all the talent and humour I possessed to help myself through, and thus to win rather than lose, before the company, and for the company. When a verse was desired for the redemption of a forfeit, the demand was usually directed to me. Now I was always prepared, and on such occasions contrived to bring out something in praise of the hostess, or of some lady who had conducted herself most agreeably towards me. If it happened that a kiss was imposed upon me at all events, I endeavoured to escape by some turn, which was considered satisfactory; and as I had time to reflect on the matter beforehand, I was never in want of various elegant excuses, although those made on the spur of the moment were always most successful.

Goethe's account points to a middle ground between Sorel's description of pledges redeemed through kisses and de Voyer's description of pledges redeemed through literary production. His views on forfeits also shed light on the counting-game episode in The Sorrows of Young Werther: "Charlotte placed the chairs in a circle; and, when the company had sat down in compliance with her request, she forthwith proposed a round game. I noticed some of the company prepare their mouths and draw themselves up at the prospect of some agreeable forfeit" ["ein saftiges Pfand"].

A fable in which a group of women are humiliated when Phryne tricks them with a forfeit task is related in "Lettre XCIV" in journalist Anne-Marguerite Petit du Noyer's Lettres historiques et galantes, de deux dames de condition, volume 6, published in 1713.

However, many other authors have offered more romantic or at least agreeable and polite perspectives on forfeits:

• Text and translation of "Le Gage Touché" (1618; a poem attributed sometimes to Motin and sometimes to Chaulvet, originally published in 1598)
• Excerpt with translation from Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse (1761; the very first letter in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's passionate epistolary novel)
• A brief account in French of (at one point macabre) travel in Périgord in 1762 includes the text of a complimentary song written for a woman in the group as a penance in a game of "Le Gage touché."
• An anonymous epistolary novel published in French in 1763 spends a couple of pages describing who kissed whom in a game of "Le Gage touché."
• Pages 181-184 of Kerwald Castle, v. 1, translate pages 243-248 of Mémoires du marquis de Solanges, v.1, depicting a round of forfeits (1766 by Desboulmiers; translation by Mrs. Barnby in 1803; v. 2 in English and French)
• In an entry for December 18, 1773, the diary of the tutor Philip Fithian describes this happening in Virginia, in association with festivities leading up to Christmas:

  When the candles were lighted, we all repaired, for the last time, into the dancing-room; first each couple danced a minuet; then all joined as before in the country dances, these continued till half after seven when at the proposal of several, we played Button, to get pawns for redemption; here I could join with them, and indeed it was carried on with sprightliness, and decency; in the course of redeeming my pawns I had several kisses of the ladies! Half after eight we were rung into supper. The room looked luminous and splendid ...

• "Le Gage-Touché" is the answer to this enigma published in Nov. 1776 in Mercure de France:

  À ce que j'ose déclarer, / Jugez de l'état de mon âme ; / L'objet qui me fait soupirer / N'est jamais celui que j'enflamme.
  For what I dare to declare, / You judge the state of my soul; / The object that makes me sigh / Is never the one I enflame.

• A brief account in French of travel in Spa (Belgium) published in 1782 describes sitting on the grass, singing, and playing games of "Le Gage touché" and "La Vérité." Both games likely have connections to "Le Roi qui ne ment pas" and "Questions and Commands," but if "La Vérité" is the same game as "Truth" / "Truth or Dare," this is a relatively early reference to it using that name and differentiating it from "Le Gage touché"
• Scenes in the untranslated plays L'Officier de fortune, ou les deux militaires (1792) and La Famille des innocens, ou comme l'amour vient (1807) depict the organization and play of lively games of "Le Gage touché" in detail
• Jean Paul's Levana; or, the Doctrine of Education (1807; describes falling in love in association with the kissing game "How Do You Like Your Neighbour?" which is not a forfeit when it appears in 19th C. manuals in English, but Jean Paul mentions a knotted handkerchief and leaves some context unclear--incidentally German Life and Manners as Seen in Saxony at the Present Day and The Buchholz Family: Sketches of Berlin Life offer later portraits of "How Do You Like Your Neighbour?" the former also including either the forfeit "Le Baiser au hasard" or game "La Feuille d'Amour," which are kissing games that differ only in length)
• On April 1, 1826, La Nouveauté published in French a very detailed account of a game of "Le Gage touché," connecting it with "Poissons d'Avril" and noting both the forfeited items and the penances performed to reclaim them
• Excerpt with translation from Mémoires de Constant, premier valet de chambre de l'empereur (1830; Louis Constant Wairy's memoir recounting an incident in the life of Napoleon ca. 1799-1804)
• Élisabeth Celnart's frequently reprinted Manuel complet de la bonne compagnie, ou Guide de la politesse et de la bienséance dedié à la jeunesse de deux sexes (1833) describes the general etiquette around playing parlor games, e.g. "Above all, we must avoid throwing around biting comments, making inappropriate compliments, and imposing mortifying penances" and "the penances imposed on those who must redeem a pledge quite often consist of kissing one or more ladies of the company: as you cannot be refused, since you follow the law of the game, show such decency that modesty cannot be alarmed."
• In 1836, an account of "Liberty and Slavery in America" by a Returned Emigrant in the UK gives a long description of kissing forfeits getting out of hand at a wedding in Mobile, Alabama:

  After prayer, and brandy and water, excitement had arisen to such a pitch, that two or three young men ventured to crowd into a corner among the lasses, and a mutual good understanding was the immediate consequence. I remained an observer, and soon perceived that questions and commands, and cross-purposes, accompanied by the most willing forfeitures, were in progress, threatening to exhaust the supply of pocket-handkerchiefs, thimbles, and penknives. At length the releasing came by the usual modes made and provided in such extremities, till kiss and come again had paid the penalties for all. Some new recruits joined in, and the games proceeded with increased spirit and rapidity, like machinery which works more freely after the first brush. I had just begun to think that they might as well omit the forfeits and other forms altogether, which had fallen into sad confusion and mismanagement, and to my surprise I perceived that I had dropped exactly into their own mode of thinking, for all ceremony was sent adrift: the gentlemen kissed the ladies, and the ladies smacked the gentlemen to their hearts' content; and as I could hardly expect any additional improvement or novelties, for the 'force of kissing could no farther go,' I took my departure, and went homeward pondering much on wbat I had seen.

• Excerpt with translation from "La Neuvaine de la Chandeleur" (1839; a moving passage from a story by Charles Nodier)
• René Clair's 1935 film The Ghost Goes West has a scene in which Murdoch Glourie--rather than going to battle--is idling in the meadow with a group of women, asking them riddles, giving as time for a reply the short time it takes him to spell a long word, and claiming a forfeit when they have no answer in time (later, he calls this the game of "Spell Me a Riddle"): "Well, you pay the forfeit." "What is it?" "You know very well it's a kiss, it's always a kiss."
• Éric Rohmer's 1990 film Conte de printemps has a scene in which one character playfully asks another to give her un gage each time she mentions something she shouldn't, and when she does, the possibility that she should tell a fairy tale is mentioned but set aside in favor of a true story

Differing contexts for forfeits in England and France are also worthy of note. Numerous English sources associate parlor games with Christmas, Twelfth Night, or winter evenings: C19 parlor game manuals like Rachel Revel's and Dean & Munday's; Giacomo Surian's letter about Twelfth Night at the court of Queen Elizabeth in 1566; Robert Burton's list in the early 1600s; Joseph Addison's comments in 1711; the register of the Order of the Garter from 1724; the 1731 recontextulization of Le Noble's parlor game story sequence as "Winter Evening Tales"; the lyrics to a theatrical song from 1782; and above all G.M. Woodward's "Christmas Gambols." This does not seem so prominent for French parlor games, although Charles Sorel does mention that one of the requirementes of galanterie is to be skilled with games in general because of winter not allowing travel out of the city.

Of course, ghost stories and tales of the supernatural were also associated with winter ritual settings in English sources such as Baldwin (1584); the "Stories of Ghosts and Apparitions" that make up "Winter Evening Conversations" in Defoe (1727); "Merryman" (1734); the Christmas ghost stories and games alluded to in Irving (1819-1820); and the many, many more Christmas ghost stories after Dickens and up to the present. This too does not seem to be the case in French parlor games, which instead have stronger connections to the poetry and fairy tales composed for literary salons and trips to chateaus in the countryside, e.g. see Zipes (2013).