Before you can know where the manicule came from, you have to know what a manicule is. The image above may give you a clue. It's the pointing hand that's so familiar in iconography and typography. Whether it's the more ornate Victorian typography or the newer emojis, we all recognize the little hand that's pointing to something important. Believe it or not, these are much older than typography or even type itself.
The first manicules were hand-drawn, in the margins of books. They were used as a kind of highlighter to point the reader to something important in the text. Examples date back to at least the year 1086. The pointing finger was always favored over an arrow because everyone knows what a pointing finger means. When type was invented, the manicule proved to be just too useful to leave out of a set of moveable type, and the use of it moved away from the reader with a pencil to the publisher with a printing press. Later on, the manicule was taken over by advertisers, sign makers, and eventually the internet. Read the entire history of the little pointy hand that you never knew the name of at Messy Nessy Chic. -via Strange Company