Sports and Physical Exercise in Early Modern Culture

New Perspectives on the History of Sports and Motion

Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Angela Schattner, Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Angela Schattner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317051008
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

It is often assumed that a recognisably modern sporting culture did not emerge until the eighteenth century. The plethora of physical training and games that existed before 1700 tend to fall victim to rigid historical boundaries drawn between "modern" and "pre-modern" sports, which are concerned primarily with levels of regulation, organization and competitiveness. Adopting a much broader and culturally based approach, the essays in this collection offer an alternative view of sport in the early modern period. Taking into account a variety of competitive as well as non-competitive forms of sport, physical training and games, the collection situates these types of activities as institutions in their own right within the socio-cultural context of early-modern Europe.

Treating the period not only as a precursor of modern developments, but as an independent and formative era, the essays engage with overlooked topics and sources such as court records, self-narratives, and visual materials, and with contemporary discussions about space, gender and postcolonial studies. By allowing for this increased contextualization of sport, the collection is able to integrate it into more general historical questions and approaches.

The volume underlines how developments in early modern sport influenced later developments, whilst at the same time being thoroughly shaped by contemporary notions of the body, status and honour. These notions influenced not only the contemporary sporting fashion but the adoption of sports in elite education, the use of sports facilities, training methods and modes of competition, thus offering a more integrated idea of the place of sport in early modern society.

PART I
What Sports? Tracing Early Modern Sports Practices

Chapter 1
The Invention of Sports: Early Modern Ball Games

Wolfgang Behringer

That the ball game is the most prominent among all sports, can be seen in all places and more notable towns, and by the example of all Christian princes in particular, who erect separately respectable and large buildings for that nice and sensual exercise.¹

Hippolytus Guarinonius, 1610

In 1610 the physician Hippolytus Guarinonius (1571-1654)² published a massive volume on the physical and spiritual dangers of his period: Die Grewel der Verwüstung Menschlichen Geschlechts (The Abominations of Desolation of Humankind). The massive volume, dedicated to Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612, r. 1576-1612), is divided into seven books, each partitioned into two parts, covering firstly the positive and secondly the dangerous aspects. Book six, On Exercise, is the most extensive publication on sports in German in the early modern period, and - most surprisingly - Guarinonius looks upon most sports very favourably, including all kinds of running, jumping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, jousting, climbing, mountaineering, throwing, swimming, hunting, hawking, fishing, riding, tilting at the ring and similar games, driving carts and sledges, walking, etc. Only their abuse seems dangerous, as for instance exercising excessively, exercising after meals, dancing while pregnant, tightrope walking, and of course any kind of games of chance. However, particularly dangerous is the opposite of sports: idling or loafing.³

Two chapters in his book On Exercise are treating ball games: Chapter 15 reports Of Seven Different Forms and the Usage of Ball Games,⁴ followed by chapter 16 where some additional ball games are discussed, such as pallamaglio, shuttlecock and bowling. The reason for treating these games separately seems to be that these were considered either games for elderly men (pall mall), or for women, though of all estates, even princesses (shuttlecock), or for common people (throwing stones or pieces of iron, and bowling, which Guarinonius really seems to dislike strongly, although he admits that there were also more refined ways of bowling).⁵ Chapter 15 groups together the more demanding ball games. His 'Seven Different Forms' were (1) the Raggetenspiel, that is tennis played with rackets, the game with the small ball, formerly played with the hand (e.g. palma, paume,jeu de pawne), which was still in use in parts of Italy. But there, as well as in France or in Germany, the game was meanwhile usually being played with rackets, either in a ballhouse with a tiled floor, or outdoors on a court. (2) Handball, with a larger ball, widely in use in Italy, but also in Germany, (3) the game with a medium-sized, hard leather ball, struck with a striking device, much in use in Bohemia, but not in Italy, (4) an unnamed, very competitive version of dodgeball, which Guarinonius seems to prefer to all other ball games, (5) an unnamed, rather funny game, where balls had to be pushed into holes, and unsuccessful players should be pitched by the opposite party, (6) another kind of tennis with wooden rackets (britschen or pallets), but with large inflated balls, played in the imperial ballhouse in Prague, and finally (7) the game with the large ball (pallone), inflated with air ('wind'), and struck with the bracciale.⁶ Due to his education, Guarinonius understands that the ball games of his time were different from those played in Greek and Roman Antiquity. None of the games with the four ancient kinds of balls - follis, paganica, trigonalis and harpastum - were comparable to the recent games.⁷ Modern ball games had developed into 'the most prominent of all sports',⁸ a claim that had not even been made by Antonio Scaino (15 24-1612), author of the most important early modern book on ball games. When Scaino refers to 'this game of ours which is to be placed before all other games' in his concluding remarks, this is mostly for medical reasons.⁹

'The Most Prominent among all Sports'

Guarinonius opens his chapter on ball games by noticing that they were 'age-old', and that they were 'common among all people'.¹⁰ Among the Greeks and the Romans ball games were so popular that already Pliny had tried to determine who had been the originator. But his claim that a certain Pythone had invented the games and had started this wonderful and healthy exercise, seems hardly credible. Guarinonius does not mention that already Homer had mentioned ball games, and that Caesar and Augustus counted among the most prominent enthusiasts in ancient Rome.¹¹ As a medical doctor it was important for Guarinonius that already the 'medicines' king' Galen, the famous doctor of a school of gladiators in Pergamon, whose medical teachings were taught at European universities well into the eighteenth century, had written a booklet on exercise by ball games, and that already this example of erudition had proven that the game with the little ball was of the utmost usefulness for the exercise of all parts of the body. Galen's text on ball games had indeed been printed in Milan in 1562, and reprinted afterwards, and it was this publication Guarinonius was referring to.¹² Here the claim of prominence was supported by amiennité as well as the ball games' particular importance for health. The reference to Galen was of course commonplace, already Scaino had placed it most prominently in his booklet, in the dedication, as well as in the foreword, in the last part of the book (chapter 3) and again in his concluding remarks.¹³ But since Galen was at the heart of the medical curriculum, authors throughout the fifteenth century had referred to his remarks on the ball game, for instance Leon Battista Alberti (1406-1472).¹⁴ And Hieronymus Mercurialis (1530-1606), court physician of Emperor Maximilian II, professor of medicine in Padua, and subsequently in Bologna and in Pisa, had treated the ancient ball games in his path-breaking six books on gymnastics, first published in Venice in 1569 and frequently reprinted afterwards.¹⁵

Guarinonius's second argument is that in all European towns large separate buildings had been constructed for the ball sports, equipped with ball masters for the training of the youth. Princes of all European territories had erected ballhouses in the course of the sixteenth century, and we shall see that this had been a recent development indeed. All these ballhouses were not just designed and built, but had to be maintained, which meant permanent expenses for refurbishment, equipment and salaries.

His third reason why ball games were deemed the most prominent of all sports, emphasizes an aspect quite contrary to the former: that for those willing to play the costs were low. Virtually everybody, even the poor, could start playing, as soon as they were able to buy a ball, or to make one themselves. Ball games could be played by everybody, just for fun, or in order to tire oneself out. One could even play ball alone, if no fellow players were available, as Guarinonius explains, by jacking the ball up in the air, or shooting it against a wall.¹⁶ The importance of Guarinonius's care for the common people can be taken from the fact that previous authors on ball games, and foremost Antonio Scaino in his famous Treatise on the Game of the Ball, unanimously tried to portray ball games as a noble exercise, akin to noble people. But even Scaino had to admit that some of the ball games required more strength than most of the noblemen could afford. Pallone, for instance, to him seemed to be more suitable to craftsmen, or soldiers. King James I (1566-1625) - in contrast - mentions but a number of ball games ('playing the caitche or tennise ... palle maille & suche like other faire & plaisant field games') in his instruction to Prince Henry (1594-1612), but remains clear that 'the honorablest & most commendable games that ye can use, are on horse-back'.¹⁷ Guarinonius seems to have missed this royal recommendation, and not even noticed its German translation, dedicated to Prince-Elector Palatine Frederick IV (1574-1610).¹⁸

'Playing Balloon all day long': A Case Study of Palatine Princes¹⁹

Not by coincidence was the British royal sports instruction dedicated to Prince-Elector Palatine Frederick IV. It was yet unknown, that King James's daughter Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662), and Frederick's son Frederick V (1596-1632), the future 'winter king' of Bohemia,²⁰ would marry soon after.²¹ What was manifest though was that Frederick IV counted among the most sportive princes of Europe. The Protestant hero - he founded the Protestant Union in order to propel the Calvinist cause in Central Europe²² - was vituperated by Jakob Wille, the editor of his diary, even 300 years later: In the prince-elector's private notations there is nothing on religion, or politics, but notes on all kinds of sports and games on a daily basis. And Fredericks expense registers confirm that picture and add more information about betting and wagers. Historian Moriz Ritter (1840-1923) wrote derogatively: 'The young prince was but an empty character, driven by an insatiable lust for hunting and tournaments, dancing and noising revelries,'²³ Even in this rejection Frederick was being stereotyped, since in his diary there is no particular enthusiasm for dancing, but rather for tilting at the ring and particularly for ball games. A peace-loving, sporting prince obviously failed to meet the expectations of nineteenth-century nationalists: They wer...