By: Annika Larsen, Fox Cities
“Sharp is the moment in which the head of the gavel strikes against the wooden surface and generates the sound of division between past and future…” says Lorenzo Benedetti in his preface to a book dedicated to the study of gavels.
Everybody knows the significance of a loud succession of wood banging on wood: calling anything from a court to a government body to an auction to order. Interestingly enough, although iconic in the United States, gavels are not used in other law jurisdictions around the world. The path the wooden hammer took to end up in most courts around the country is not exactly known. In fact, much of its origin is still unknown. Some believe that the gavel is connected to the Freemasons, a group that included George Washington, Ben Franklin, and many other founding fathers. The Freemasons were not a group of literal masons, however they began to implement the craft into their practices. The gavel may have originated from as a setting-maul, a tool used by masons to knock stones into place in walls. The theory is that the influence carried into our government and court system, hence why the House and Senate use gavels to open meetings, get the legislative body’s attention, and adjourn meetings. Gavels in courts are generally used to gain the attention of an audience.
However, this idea is patchy and doesn’t fully explain the story. The use of the word gavel to refer to a hammer is hard to trace past the 19th century. Its only use was to mean ‘rent’ or ‘tribute’ given to landlords in the Middle Ages.
The gavel used by the U.S. Senate is actually a handle-less ivory knocker locked in a drawer until a session opens. And although the gavel is, as said before, quite iconic, according to a 2011 article in the New York Daily News, many judges don’t even bother bringing it out of chambers.