Flirting with a Handkerchief

In a poem of 1620, Richard Johnson attributes the Honi soit qui mal y pense motto to the queen of France, in his “Gallant Song of the Garter of England.” When her garter falls during a feast, the snickering courtiers seem to accuse her of dropping it deliberately to attract the king’s attention, so it is actually the queen who coins the motto in their reproof:

But when she heard these ill conceits

And speeches that they made,

Hony soyt qui mal y pens,

                        the noble Princes said.

Ill hap to them that evill thinke,

In English it is thus

Which words so wise (quoth Englands King)

                                   shall surely goe with us …

This reminds me of those stupid scenes in Mickey Mouse-vintage cartoons, where a simpering female character would drop her lace handkerchief in front of a male she wanted to attract. He is supposed, gallantly, to return it, and thus start a conversation. 

My question is this: what's the oldest known reference to this kind of behaviour? I did a quick google search and found an allusion, but it was a website selling a C19 French lace handkerchief. http://www.rubylane.com/shops/nicole-la-bay/item/1208LAC: 

At a time when women were not allowed to talk to a stranger, handkerchiefs were literally a means of communication, as ladies would drop these precious pieces of lace on the sidewalk, whenever they wanted to attract the attention of a gentleman.
Gentlemen were of course extremely flattered to pick them up and give them back to their owners.

I've no idea if this is just made up or refers to a "real" C19 practice. So, dear readers, from your wide reading in history, fiction, poetry, textile history, etc., can you think of any examples? I guess Johnson's poem suggests an early suspicion of feminine wiles, but it's the handkerchief that has become the iconic object here. But since when?