Semantic search
-1000s.1 Thirty Century-Old Leather-Covered Hardballs Found
In an excavation of burial grounds in 1970, "a leather ball, around the size of a human fist" turned up. That ball, and two others found in the area, have been dated as a little over 3000 years ago. "The results were published in the open-access Journal of Archeological Science: Reports.
"'We can now confirm that these three leather balls from Yanghai are the oldest leather balls in Eurasia,' says Patrick Wertmann, an archeologist at the University of Zurich and lead author of the recent study. "'They were life tools, used for play or useful training.'"
"The balls -- which are stuffed with wool and hair, wrapped in treated rawhide . . . are no joke. 'They're actually really hard,' Wertmann says. 'You could compare these leather balls from Yanghai with modern baseballs'"
"Leather Balls and 3,000-Year-Old Pants Hint at a Ancient Asian Sport."
See https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-ancient-balls-xinjiang. Accessed 11/25/2020 via search of <Balls Yanghai Tombs>.
Patrick Wertmann,et al;, "New evidence for ball games in Eurasia from ca. 3000-year-old Yanghai tombs in the Turfan depression of Northwest China." Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep) Supplemental Text, below, for the
"More recent art from elsewhere in China shows polo-like games being played on horseback with sticks"
evidence for ball games in Eurasia from ca. 3000-year-old Yanghai tombs in the Turfan depression of Northwest China Patrick Wertmanna,⁎,
"'We cannot determine based on current evidence that these balls can be linked with polo,' says Jeffrey Blomster, an archeologist at George Washington University . . . 'the fact that all three are nearly the same size suggests a similar use for all three.'"
For comments on the game played with these balls see Supplemental Text, below.
[] For information on balls found from even earlier times, in Egyptian tombs from 2600 BCE, see -2600c.1
-2000000c.2 Humans Evolve as Runners
"We are very confidence that strong selection for running" <occurred some two million years ago>
D. Bramble and D. Lieberman, "XXX," Nature, November 18, 2018.
-2500.2 Tale of Game in Sumer, Possibly Using Ball and Mallet.
Gilgamesh was a celebrated Sumerian king who probably reigned 2800-2500 BCE. His legend appears in several later poems.
In one, he drops a mikku and a pukku, used in a ceremony or game, into the underworld.
One scholar, Andrew George, suggests that the objects were a ball and a mallet. George translates the game played as something like a polo game where humans are ridden instead of horses.
When the two objects are lost, Gilgamesh is said in this interpretation to weep;
'O my ball! O my mallet!
O my ball, which I have not enjoyed to the full!
O my mallet, with which I have not had my fill of play!'
The Epic of Gilgamesh, dated as early at 2100 BCE.
Mark Pestana, who tipped Protoball off on the Sumerian reference, suggest two texts for further insight:
[1] Damrosch, David, The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007). For specific reference to the ball & mallet, page 232. Damrosch’s comment on the primacy of Andrew George’s interpretation: “For Gilgamesh, the starting point is Andrew George’s The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation. . . "This is the best and most complete translation of the epic ever published, including newly discovered passages not included in any other translation.” (Damrosch, page 295)
[2] George, Andrew, The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation (London, England: Penguin Books, 1999). This book includes a complete translation of the Standard version, a generous helping of fragments of the Old Babylonian version, plus the Sumerian “ur-texts” of the individual Gilgamesh poems. The quote I included describing the ball game is to be found on page 183.
In the Supplemental Text, below, we provide an excerpt from a translation by Andrew George from his "Gilgamesh and the Netherworld."
Mark Pestana, who submitted this item to Protoball, observes, "Polo? Croquet? Golf? Rounders? I think it's interesting that the spot of the ball is marked at the end of the first day."
See Mark's full coverage in the Supplemental Text, below.
Have other scholars commented on Mr. George's ballplaying interpretation of the Gilgamesh epic?
-2600c.1 "The Ball Enters History"
When the ball finally enters history, it arrives as a bizarre and homoerotic form of polo played on the backs not of horses, but of humans. The account of this strange sport is fond in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first works of literature ever written. It was carved into cuneiform tablets around 2600BC. . . . "
[A translation of the text: "[(His) comrades are roused up with his ball (game), the young men of Uruk are continually disturbed in their bedrooms (with a summons to play)"]
John Fox, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game (Harper Perennial, 2012), page 36.
For the later Asian game, see https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-ancient-balls-xinjiang.
Fox places the setting for the Gilgamesh story in what is now southern Iraq.
John Fox observes (Fox, p. 37) that this ancient piggy-back ball game also is seen in Egypt's Middle Kingdom a few centuries later, and in ancient Greece, where it was known as ephedrimos.
He also reports that "the actual balls used in [Egyptian] games have turned up with some frequency in Egyptian tombs . . . . Stitched leather balls, bearing an uncanny resemblance to modern-day hacky-sacks, were stuffed with straw, reeds, hair, or yarn. Balls made of papyrus, palm leaves, and linen wound around a pottery core have turned up as well." (Fox, p. 39)
Note: In 2020, it was reported that around 1000 BCE stuffed leather balls were possibly used by Uighurs in what is now norther China, plausible in an ancient form of equestrian polo.
Do we know of speculation -- or evidence -- as to how this piggy-back ball game might have been played, and how it could have been made attractive to it players?
-700c.1 First Known Written Depiction of Ball Play?
[A] "There is a famous scene in the Odyssey where a princess named Nausicaa goes down to the river bank with her attending maidens to wash come clothes. As their garments are drying in the sun, and while Ulysses is sleeping nearby in the bushes, the women engage in a game of ball. For eons, writers have cited this scene as the earliest literary reference to humans playing with a ball."
[B] ". . . Nausicaa/ With other virgins, did at stool-ball play;/ . . ./ The Queene now (for the upstroke) strooke the ball/Quite wide of the other maids; and made it fall/Amidst the whirlpooles. At which, out shriekt all;/And with the shrieke, did wise Ulysses wake."
[A] David Block, Pastime Lost (U Nebraska Press, 2019), pp 53-54. See also pp 55-56.
[B] George Chapman (translator), The Whole Works of Homer, (London, 1606), p. 89.
Note: For one recent review of knowledge of very early ball play by humans, see John Fox, The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game (Harper, 2012), pp. 30-47.
The date of the Odyssey, given here as circa 700 BCE, is not even generally agreed to by scholars. Don't take it literally; it is presented only because formatted chronology listings need to place an entry somewhere, or otherwise omit them entirely
See also chronology entry 1788.3 for a later translation that uses "baste ball" instead of stool-ball as the game played by the women.
Non-written depictions of ball play also exist in various ancient art forms.
Some writers see the Odyssey verse as describing a game resembling dodgeball.
1000c.1 America Sees First European "Games?"
"Now winter was coming on, and the brothers said that people ought to start playing games and finding something amusing to do. They did so for a time, but then people started saying unpleasant things about each other, and they fell out with each other, and the games came to an end. The people in the two houses stopped going to see each other, and that was how things were for a great deal of the winter.
Johan Grundt Tanum Forlag, "The Saga of the Greenlanders; Eirik the Red Takes Land in Iceland," Vinland the Good: The Saga of Leif Eiricsson and the Viking Discovery of America (Oslo, 1970), page 39.
Three older siblings of Leif Ericksson travel to Vinland and occupy two houses built in an earlier Vinland journey by Leif's father, Eirik the Red.
Note: Accounts of Viking games state the among the games was a "stick and ball" variety. As of April 2, 2022, Protoball has not located a source for such a conclusion, or any details of how such a game was played (let alone whether it involved baserunning).
--
From Bruce Allardice, April 3, 2022:
"Outdoor games [among the Vikings] were greatly popular. Based on Viking warrior skills, there were competitions in archery, wrestling, stone throwing and sword play. Horse fighting was also popular; two stallions would be goaded into fighting. Occasionally mares would be tied up around the field, within the sight and smell of the stallions. The horses would battle until one was killed or ran away.
Vikings engaged in running, swimming, tug-of-war called toga-honk and wrestling. Vikings also played a ball game with stick and ball. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to get hurt or even killed, as Vikings played rough. Women did not participate in these games, but they would gather to watch the men.
Children played with wooden toys their parents carved, or they played ball and also engaged in child versions of adult games. Child-sized replicas of weapons such as swords, shield and spears were found buried with other grave goods."
The stick-ball game was Knattleikr (English: 'ball-game'), an ancient ball game similar to hurling played by Icelandic Vikings.
Are the Sagas taken as accurate by scholars of Viking exploits?
When did the three siblings live in Vinland? Were the houses built in what is now US or Canada?
When were the Sagas written?
1086.1 Form of Stool Ball Possibly Found in Domesday Book in Norman England?
Stool ball, a stick and ball game and a forerunner of rounders and cricket, is apparently mentioned in the Domesday Book as "bittle-battle."
Note: This source is Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 75.
Henderson doesn't exactly endorse the idea that the cited game, "bittle-battle," is a ball game [or if it is, could it be a form of soule?] He says that one [unnamed] author claims that bittle-battle is a form of stoolball. I saw only two Henderson refs to stoolball, ref 72 [Grantham] and ref 149 [London Magazine]. One of them may be Henderson's source for the 1086 stoolball claim. I don't see a Henderson ref to the Domesday text itself, but then, it probably isn't found at local lending libraries.
Henderson labels this claim "highly conjectural." [ba]
The Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect [1875] reportedly gives "bittle-battle" as another name for stoolball. It is believed that "bittle" meant a wooden milk bowl and some have speculated that a bowl may have been used as a paddle to deflect a thrown ball from the target stool, while others speculate that the bowl may have been the target itself.
Note: We need to confirm whether the Domesday Book actually uses the term "bittle-battle," "stool ball," or what. We also should try to ascertain views of professional scholars on the interpretations of the Book. Martin Hoerchner advises that the British Public Records Office may, at some point, make parts of the Domesday Book available online.
I've not found bittle-battle in the Domesday book [ba]
1100s.1 "Pagan" Ball Rites Observed in France in 1100s and 1200s
Henderson: "The testimony of Beleth and Durandus, both eminently qualified witnesses, clearly indicates that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the ball had found a place for itself in the Easter celebrations of the Church." In fact, Beleth and Durandus had both opposed the practice, seeing it as the intrusion of pagan rites into church rites. "There are some Churches in which it is customary for the Bishops and Archbishops to play in the monasteries with those under them, even to stoop to the game of ball" [Beleth, 1165]. "In certain places in our country, prelates play games with their own clerics on Easter in the cloisters, or in the Episcopal Palaces, even so far as to descend to the game of ball" [Durandus, 1286].
Note: This source appears to be Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 37-38. Page 37 refers to an 1165 prohibition and page 38 mentions 12th and 13th Century Easter rites. Henderson identifies two sources for the page 38 statement: Beleth, J., "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," in Migne, J. P., Patrologiae Curius Completus, Ser 2, Vol. 106, pp. 575-591 [Paris, 1855], and Durandus, G., "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," Book VI, Ch 86, Sect. 9 [Rome, 1473]...Henderson does not say that these rites involved the use of sticks.
1189.1 "Unconfirmed" Report of a Stoolball Reference by Iscanus
There is "an unconfirmed report which was published in the beginning of the Century quoting one Joseph Iscanus, of Exeter, as having referred to stoolball in 1189, but no satisfactory evidence that this quotation was genuine." National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," page 2. This mimeo, available in NSA files, has no date or author, but has one internal reference to an 1989 source, so it must be fairly recent. It contains no hint on the source of the 1189 claim or how it has been assessed. Note: Is it now possible to further pursue this claim using online resources? The 1189 claim appears nowhere else in available writings about stoolball.
However, some cite a Joseph Iscanus couplet: "The youth at cricks did play/Throughout the livelong [or "merry"] day/" as an indicator of early cricket. However, the online source of this rhyme does not give a source. Very murky, no? [The rhyme is quoted as early as the 1860 edition of The Cricketer’s Manual, and ten years earlier in Bell’s Life in a letter from “Alexis” on the subject “When Was Cricket Invented?” ] Query: what do leading cricket historians say of this alleged reference?
1200s.1 Bat and Ball Game Illustration Appears in English Genealogical Roll
"The [1301 - see below] illustration is a very early depiction of the game we know as baseball, but it's probably not the first. In 1964, a writer named Harry Simmons cited an English bat and ball picture from a genealogical roll of the Kings of England up to Henry III, who died in 1269."
Baltimore Sun article on the Ghistelle Calendar [see entry for 1301], April 6, 1999, page 1E.
1205.1 "Ball" Rolls into the English Language
Scholars report that the Chronicle of Britain [1205] contained the words "Summe heo driuen balles wide . . ." which they see as "the first known use of the word ball in the sense of a globular body that is played with." The source? Old Norse, by way of Middle English. [Old High German had used ballo and pallo, but the English didn't use "ball" in those days.] The source does not say whether people in England used some other term for their rolling playthings prior to 1205.
Source: Wikipedia entry on "ball," accessed 5/31/2006.
1255.1 Spanish Drawing Seen as Early Depiction of Ballplaying
A thirteenth century Spanish drawing appears to depict a female figure swinging at a ball with a bat.
The book Spain: A History in Art by Bradley Smith (Doubleday, 1971) includes a plate that appears to show "several representations of baseball figures and some narrative." The work is dated to 1255, the period of King Alfonso.
The book Spain: A History in Art by Bradley Smith (Doubleday, 1971) includes a plate that appears to show "several representations of baseball figures and some narrative." The work is dated to 1255, the period of Spain's King Alfonso.
Email from Ron Gabriel, July 10, 2007. Ron also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention. 2007 Annotation: can we specify the painting and its creator? Can we learn how baseball historians and others interpret this artwork?
From Pam Bakker, email of 1/4/2022:
"Cantigas de Santa Maria,"or "Canticles (songs) of Holy Mary" by Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221-1284)
Ron Gabriel also has supplied a quality color photocopy of this plate, which was the subject of his presentation at the 1974 SABR convention
From Pam Bakker, email of 1/4/2022:
"Cantigas de Santa Maria" (written in Galician-Portuguese) or "Canticles (songs) of Holy Mary" by Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221-1284) is a collection of 420 poems with musical notation in chant-style, used by troubadours. It has fanciful extra biblical stories of miracles performed by Mary and hymns of veneration. She is often presented doing ordinary things, intended to elevate her while showing her engaged in life. It was very popular in the early Christian world. The book has illustrations, one of which appears to portray a woman swinging at a ball with a bat."
Can we further specify the drawing and its creator?
Can we learn how baseball historians and others interpret this artwork?
Do we know why this drawing is dated to 1255?
1299.1 Prince of Wales Plays "Creag," Seen By Some as a Cricket Precursor
Prince of Wales
Cashman, Richard, "Cricket," in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 87.
1300s.1 Trapball Played in the British Isles
Trevithick, Alan, "Trapball," in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 421.
1300s.3 Stoolball Said to Originate Among Sussex Milkmaids
"Stoolball is a ball game that dates back to the 14th century, originating in Sussex [in southern England]. It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders. Traditionally it was played be milkmaids who used their milking stools as 'wickets.' . . ." Later forms of the game involved running between two wickets, but "[o]riginally the batsman simply had to defend his stool from each ball with his hand and would score a point for each delivery until the stool was hit. The game later evolved to include runs and bats."
Source: Wikipedia entry on "Stoolball," accessed 1/25/2007. Note: this source does not credit bittle-battle [see entry 1086.1] as an earlier form of stoolball. It gives no citations for the evidence of the founding date. The Wikipedia entry is compatible with entry #1330.1, below, but evidently does not credit 1330 as the likely time of stoolball's appearance.
1301.1 Ghistelles Calendar Depicts Vigorous-Looking Bat/Ball Game
A manuscript obtained in 1999 by the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore appears to show a batted-ball game played by two young persons. The manuscript, called the Calendar of the Ghistelles Hours, dates from 1301. It is a small monthly calendar of saints' days from a monastery in the town of Ghistelles, in southwestern Flanders. The illustration is for the month of September.
Schoettler, Carl, "The Old, Old, Old Ball Game," Baltimore Sun, April 6 1999, page 1E.
1310.1 Documents Said to Describe Baseball-like Romanian Game of Oina
According to an otherwise unidentified clip in the Origins file at the Giamatti Center, an AP article datelined Bucharest Romania [and which appeared in the Oneonta Times on March 29, 1990], the still popular Romanian game of oina can be traced back to a [unspecified] document dating to the year 1310. The game itself "was invented by shepherds in the first century."
The article is evidently based on an interview with Cristian Costescu, who sees baseball as "the American pastime derived from the ancient game of oina." Oina reportedly has eleven players per side, an all-out-side-out rule, tossed pitches, nine bases describing a total basepath of 120 yards, plugging of baserunners, the opportunity for the fielding side to score points, and a bat described as similar to a cricket bat. Costescu is reported to have served as head of the Romanian Oina Federation in the years when baseball was banned in Romania as "a capitalist sport."
The Oneonta Times headline is "Play Oina! Romanians Say Their Game Inspired Creation of Baseball." Note: Can we find additional documentation of oina's rules and history? Is the 1310 documentation available in English translation? Have others followed the recent fate of oina and the work of Costescu?
1310c.2 A Drawing of "A Game of Ball," with a Player in a Batting Pose
A 1915 book on ancient British schools includes a drawing dated circa 1310. It shows two players, one clad in a garment with broad horizontal stripes. Both players hold clubs, and the player in stripes appears ready to swing at a melon-sized ball. The other player appears to be preparing to fungo the ball . . . or, conceivably, toss it with his left hand, to the striped player. The illustration's caption is "A Game of Ball, Stripes vs. Plain, c. 1310." The British Museum's documentation: MS Royal 10 E. iv, f. 94 b.
Posted by Mark Aubrey to the 19CBB listserve on 1/10/2008. The 1915 source, available in full text on Google Books, is A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England (Macmillan, New York, 1915), on the unnumbered page following p. 140.
1330.1 Vicar of Winkfield Advises Against Bat/Ball Games in Churchyards; First Stoolball Reference?
"Stoolball was played in England as early as 1330, when William Pagula, Vicar of Winkfield, near Windsor, wrote in Latin a poem of instructions to parish priests, advising them to forbid the playing of all games of ball in churchyards: "Bats and bares and suche play/Out of chyrche-yorde put away."
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], p. 74. Note: The Vicar's caution was translated in 1450 by a Canon, John Myrc. Henderson's ref 120 is Mirk [sic], J., "Instructions to Parish Priests," Early English Text Society, Old Series 31, p. 11 [London, 1868]. A contemporary of Myrc in 1450 evidently identified the Vicar's targets as including stoolball. Block [p. 165] identifies the original author as William de Pagula. Writing in 1886, T. L. Kington Oliphant identifies "bares" as prisoner's base: "There is the term "bace pleye," whence must come the "prisoner's base;" this in Myrc had appeared as the game of "bares." Kington Oliphant does not elaborate on this claim, and does not comment on the accompanying term "bats" in the original. The 1886 reference was provided by John Thorn, 2/24/2008
1344.1 Manuscript Shows a Club-and-Ball Game with Stool-like Object
"A manuscript of 1344 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (No. 264) shows a game of club and ball. One player throws that ball to another who holds a vicious-looking club. He defends a round object which resembles a stool but with a base instead of legs. . . ". "In the course of time a second stool was added, which obviously made a primitive form of cricket. Now a stool was also called a "cricket" and it is possible that the name cricket came from the three-legged stool . . . " "We may summarize: The game and name of cricket stem back to ancient games played with a curved stick and ball, starting with la soule, and evolving in England through stoolball . . .".
Henderson, Robert W., Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origins of Ball Games [Rockport Press, 1947], pp. 130-131. Henderson's ref 17 is Bodleian Library, Douce MSS 264, ff 22, 44, 63. Cox's 1903 edition of Strutt includes this drawing and its reference. Note: do other observers agree with Henderson on whether and how stoolball evolved into cricket?
1363.1 Englishmen Forbidden to Play Ball; Archery Much Preferred
Edward III wrote to the Sheriff of Kent, and evidently sheriffs throughout England. Noting a relative neglect of the useful art of archery, the King said he was thereby, on festival days, "forbidding, all and single, on our orders, to toy in any way with these games of throwing stones, wood, or iron, playing handball, football, "stickball," or hockey, . . . which are worthless, under pain of imprisonment." The translator uses "stickball" as a translation of the Latin "pila cacularis," and suggests that it might have been an early form of cricket. We might also ask whether it was referring to early stoolball.
A. R. Myers, English Historical Documents (Routledge, 1996), page 1203. [Viewed online 10/16/08]. Provided in email from John Thorn, 2/27/2008. Myers' citation is "Rymer, Foedera, III, ii, from Close Roll, 37 Edward III [Latin]."
Caveat: The content of this entry resembles that of #1365.1 below, and both refer to a restriction imposed by Edward III. However that entry, stemming from Strutt, refers to "club-ball" instead of "stick-ball," and identifies the Latin as "pilam bacculoream," not "pila cacularis." It is possible that both refer to the same source. Strutt’s text reads: “The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III., exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; throwing of stones, wood, or iron….” The accompanying footnote reads: “Pilam manualtm, ptdinam, el bacculoream, et ad cambucam, etc.” Also: the letter to Kent is elsewhere dated 1365, which could be consistent with Edward III's 37th year under the crown, but Myers uses 1363.
Note: this entry replaced the former entry #1365.1: "In 1365 the sheriffs had to forbid able-bodied men playing ball games as, instead, they were to practice archery on Sundays and holidays." Source: Hassall, W. O., [compiler], "How They Lived: An Anthology of Original Accounts Written Before 1485" [Blackwell, Oxford University Press, 1962], page 285. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
1365.1 Edward III Prohibits Playing of Club-Ball.
Edward III
"The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III, exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; the throwing of stones, wood, or iron; playing at hand-ball, foot-ball, club-ball, and camucam, which I take to have been a species of goff . . . ." Edward III reigned from 1327 to 1377. The actual term for "club-ball" in the proclamation was, evidently, "bacculoream."
This appears to be one of only two direct references to "club-ball" in the literature. See #1794.2, below.
Caveat: David Block argues that, contrary to Strutt's contention [see #1801.1, below], club ball may not be the common ancestor of cricket and other ballgames. See David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, pages 105-107 and 183-184. Block says that "pilam bacculoream" translates as "ball play with a stick or staff." Note: We seem not to really know what "camucam" was. Nor, of course, how club ball was played, since the term could have denoted a form of tennis or field hockey or and early form of stoolball or cricket. Edward II had issued a ban of his own in 1314, regarding football.
1385.1 English Boys Play Ball "To the Grave Peril of Their Souls"
A letter written by Robert Braybroke laid out the palpable risks of ball-playing: "Certain [boys], also, good for nothing in their insolence and idleness, instigated by evil minds and busying themselves rather in doing harm than good, throw and shoot stones, arrows, and different kinds of missiles at the rooks, pigeons, and other birds nesting in the walls and porches of the church and perching [there]. Also they play ball inside and outside the church and engage in other destructive games there, breaking and greatly damaging the glass windows and the stone images of the church . . . .This they do not without great offense to God and our church and to the prejudice and injury of us as well as to the grave peril of their souls." And the sanction for such play? "We . . . proclaim solemnly that any malefactors whatever of this kind [including churchyard merchants as well as young ballplayers] whom it is possible to catch in the aforesaid actions after this our warning have been and are excommunicated . . . ."
Crow, Martin M., and Clair C. Olson, eds., "Chaucer's World" [Columbia University Press, New York, 1948], pp. 48-49. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
1393.1 Disconfirmed Poetry Lines Said to Denote Stoolball in Sussex
According to a 2007 article in a Canadian magazine, there is poetry in which a milkmaid calls to another, "Oi, Rosie, coming out to Potter's field for a whack at the old stool?" The article continues: "The year was 1393. The place was Sussex . . . the game was called stoolball, which was probably a direct descendant of stump-ball".
The article, by Ruth Tendulkar, is titled "The Great-Grandmother of Baseball and Cricket," and appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine. As of 2007, we have been unable to find additional source details from the author or the magazine.
http://www.cnmag.ca, as accessed 9/6/2007.
Caution: The editor of The Canadian Newcomers Magazine informed us on 1/10/2008 that the Tendulkar piece "was strictly an entertainment piece rather than an academic piece." We take this to say that the verse is not authentic. Email from Dale Sproule, Publisher/Editor.
Is "stumpball" actually a known game? Have we done adequate searches for this name?
1400c.1 Savior Son Wants "To Go Play at Ball"
A well-known and still-sung medieval English carol (in this case, not a Christmas carol), is The Bitter Withy (withy is the willow tree). The carol is dated to around 1400.
As it fell out on a holy day.
The drops of rain did fall, did fall.
Our Saviour asked leave of his mother Mary
If he might go play at ball.
To play at ball, my own dear son,
It's time you was going or gone,
But be sure let me hear no complain of you
At night when you do come home.
John Bowman reports that "The poem then tells how the boy Jesus tricks some boys into drowning and is spanked by his mother with a willow branch. Although I do not know what scholars have to say about the ball game, it is clear that the upper-class boys regard it as lower-class!"
The full selection, and John's email, are shown below.
Norton Anthology of Poetry (third edition, 1983) page 99.
What, if anything, have scholars said about the nature of the game that Jesus played? A baserunning and/or batting game? More like soccer or field hockey? Other?
1440c.1 Fresco at Casa Borromeo shows Female Ball Players
In a ground floor room at the Casa Borromeo in Milan, Italy is a room with wall murals depicting the amusements of Fifteenth Century nobility. One of the images depicts five noble women playing some sort of bat and ball game. One woman holds a bat and is preparing to hit a ball to a group of four women who prepare to catch the ball using the folds of their dresses. This Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs published an article about the Casa Borromeo frescoes in 1918 and included a black and white photo of the female ball players. A color version of the fresco is available online.
Lionel Cust, "The Frescoes in the Casa Borromeo at Milan," The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 33, No. 184 (July 1918), 8. Link to color image: http://www.storiadimilano.it/Arte/giochiborromeo/giochiborromeo.htm
Note: This drawing is listed as "contemporary" on the premise that it was meant to depict ballplaying in the 1400s.
1450.1 John Myrc Repeats Warning Against Ball Play in the Churchyard, Including "Stoil Ball"
David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It [page 165], cites the Myrc work, "early poetic instruction of priests," as "How thow schalt thy paresche preche," London. It warns "Bal and bares and suche play/ Out of chyrcheyorde put a-way." A note reportedly inserted by another author included among the banned games "tenessyng handball, fott ball stoil ball and all manner other games out churchyard." Note: can we determine when the "other author" wrote in "stoil ball? This may count as the first time "stool ball" [virtually] appeared.
1450.2 Stoolball Dated by NSA to 1450 in "Don Quixote"
"[Stoolball] is mentioned in the classic book Don Quixote."
National Stoolball Association website, accessed April 2007.
Since Cervantes' Don Quixote was published between 1605 and 1615, the above date should be changed to that date.... or to 1694 (see below). [ba]
Note: we need a fuller citation and the key text. Is it possible that this entry confuses D'Urfey's 1694 play about Don Quixote [see Entry #1694.1, below] with the Cervantes masterpiece?
1470c.1 Editor Sees Stoolball in Verse on Bachelorhood
"In al this world nis a murier lyf/Thanne is a yong man wythouten a wyf,/For he may lyven wythouten strif/In every place wher-so he go.
"In every place he is loved over alle/Among maydens grete and smale-/In daunsyng, in pipyngs, and rennyng at the balle,/In every place wher-so he go.
"They leten lighte by housebonde-men/Whan they at the balle renne;/They casten ther love to yonge men/In every place wher-so they go.
"Then seyn maydens, "Farewel, Jakke,/Thy love is pressed al in thy pak;/Thou berest thy love bihynde thy back,/In every place wher-so thou go."
Robert Stevick, ed., One Hundred Middle English Lyrics (U of Illinois Press, 1994), page 141. Posted to 19CBB on 11/14/2008 by Richard Hershberger. Richard reports that Stevick dates this poem—#81 of the 100 collected in this volume—to c. 1470. He interprets the lyric's 'running at the ball' as 'stool ball, probably,' but stow ball [resembling field hockey] seems apter. Richard also points out that "for the sake of precision, it should be noted that this volume is intended for student use and normalizes the spellings."
For "stow ball," see Aspin, "Ancient Customs, Sports, and Pastimes of the English" (1832) p. 218.
1477.1 List of Banned Games May Include Distant Ancestors of Cricket?
A Westminster statute, made to curb gambling by rowdy soldiers upon their return from battle, reportedly imposed sanctions for "playing at cloish, ragle, half-bowls, handyn and handoute, quekeborde, and if any person permits even others to play at such games in his house or yard, he is to be imprisoned for three years; as also he who plays at such game, to forfeit ten pounds to the king, and be imprisoned for two years."
Observations Upon the Statutes, Chiefly the More Ancient, from Magna Charta to the Twenty-first [Year] of James the First, etc. (Daines Barrington, London, 1766), page 335.
The author adds: "This is, perhaps, the most severe law which has ever been made in any country against gaming, and some of the forbidden sports seem to have been manly exercises, particularly the handing and handoute, which I should suppose to be a kind of cricket, as the term hands is still retained in that game [for what would later be known as innings].
An1864 writer expands further: "Half-bowls was played with pins and one-half of a sphere of wood, upon the floor of a room. It is said to be still played in Hertfordshire under the name of rolly-polly. Hand-in and hand-out was a ring-game, played by boys and girls, like kissing-ring [footnote 31]." John Harland, A Volume of Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), p 34. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google Books search ("court leet" half-bowls). "Roly-poly" and hand-in/hand-out are sometimes later described as having running/plugging features preserved in cat games and early forms of base ball. Thus, these prohibitions may or may not include games resembling baseball. Query: Can residents of Britain help us understand this ancient text?
1478.1 Du Cange Mentions "Criquet" Game in his Glossary
While others see cricket as taking its name from the term for a staff, or stick, "[T]he famous New English Dictionary favors a word used as a [game's] target: criquet. Du Cange quotes this word in a manuscript of 1478: 'The suppliant came to a place where a game of ball (jeu de boule) was played, near to a stick (attaché) or criquet,' and defines criquet as 'a stick which serves as a target in a ball game.'"
Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae ET Infimae Latinatis [Paris, 1846], Vol. 4: Mellat, Vol. 5 Pelotas. Per Henderson ref 48.
1478.2 Parliament Speaks: Jail or Fine for Unlawful Gameplaying
An Act of Parliament forbade unlawful games as conducive to disorder and as discouraging the practice of archery. The games that were forbidden, under penalty of two years' imprisonment or a fine of ten pounds, were these: quoits, football, closh, kails, half-bowls, hand-in and hand-out, chequer-board.
This Act is cited as Rot. Parl. VI, 188. Information provided by John Thorn, email of 2/27/2008.
Caveat: The list of proscribed games is similar to the Edward III's prohibition [see #1363.1 above] adding "hand-in and hand-out" in place of a game translated as "club-ball" or "stick-ball." We are uncertain as to whether hand-in and hand-out is the ancestor of a safe-haven game.
1494c.1 Christopher Columbus and the Coefficient of Restitution
Christopher Columbus
"When Christopher Columbus revisited Haiti on his second voyage, he observed some natives playing with a ball. The men who came with Columbus to conquer the Indies had brought their Castilian wind-balls [wound from yarn] to play with in idle hours. But at once they found that the balls of Haiti were incomparably superior; they bounced better. These high-bouncing balls were made, they learned, from a milky fluid of the consistency of honey which the natives procured by tapping certain trees and then cured over the smoke of palm nuts. A discovery which improved the delights of ball games was noteworthy." 350 years later, after Goodyear discovered vulcanization [1839], "India rubber" balls were to be identified with the New York game of baseball.
Holland Thompson, "Charles Goodyear and the History of Rubber," at http://inventors.about.come/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/rubber_2.htm, accessed 1/24/2007.
Note: We need better sources for the Columbus story.
1500s.1 Ballplaying Permitted at College of Tours in France, If Done 'Cum Silentio'
"Parisian legislators were more sympathetic with regard to games than their English contemporaries. Even the Founder of the Cisterian College of St Bernard contemplated that permission might be obtained for games, though not before dinner or after the bell rang for vespers. A sixteenth century code of statutes for the College of Tours, while recording the complaints of the neighbors about the noise made by the scholars playing ball ('de insolentiis, exclamationibus et ludis palmariis dictorum scholarium, qui ludent . . . pilis durissimis') permitted the game under less noisy conditions ('pilis seu scopes mollibus et manu, ac cum silentio et absque clamoribus tumultuosis.')
Rait, Robert S., Life in the Medieval University [Cambridge University Press, 1912], p. 83. Submitted by John Thorn, 10/12/2004.
1500s.2 Queen Elizabeth's Dudley Plays Stoolball at Wotton Hill?
Lord Robert Dudley; Queen Elizabeth I
According to a manuscript written in the 1600s, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and his "Trayne" "came to Wotton, and thence to Michaelwood Lodge . . . and thence went to Wotton Hill, where hee paid a match at stobball."
Internal evidence places ths event in the fifteenth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, which would be 1547-48. Elizabeth I named her close associate [once rumored to be her choice as husband] Dudley to became Earl of Leicester in the 1564, and he died in 1588.
Caveat: "Stobbal" is usually used to denote a field game resembling field hockey or golf; thus, this account may not relate to stoolball per se.
The Wotton account was written by John Smyth of Nibley (1567-1640) in his Berkeley Manuscripts [Sir John McLean, ed., Gloucester, Printed by John Bellows, 1883]. Smyth's association with Berkeley Castle began in 1589, and the Manuscripts were written in about 1618, so it is not a first-hand report.
Note: Is it possible to determine the approximate date of this event?
1523.1 Baron's Trespass Records Mention Stoball
"Item, quod petrus frankeleyne vid posuit iiiixx ovesin le stoball field contra ordinacionem."
Source: National Stoolball Association, "A Brief History of Stoolball," [mimeo, author and date unspecified], page 2. This wording is reportedly found in "an extract from the rolls of the Court Baron of the Royal Manor of Kirklington, belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster (16th Century), under the heading of trespass." Note: We need a citation here, and a reason for assigning the 1523 date. The relation of stoball to stoolball remains under dispute, with many observers seeing stoball as an early golf-like game. Can we obtain a good translation and interpretation of this quotation?
1533.1 Skelton Poem Traces Cricket to Flemish Immigrants?
"O lodre of Ipocrites/ Nowe shut vpp your wickets,/ And clappe to your clickettes/ A! Farewell, kings for crekettes!"
"The Image of Ipocrisie" (1533) attributed to John Skelton. This verse is interpreted as showing no sympathy to Flemish weavers who settled in southern and eastern England, bringing at least the rudiments of cricket with them. Heiner Gillmeister and John Campbell noted publicly in June 2009 that this is relevant evidence of cricket's non-English origin. Note: the first written reference to cricket was nearly 70 years in the future in 1533. Contributed by Beth Hise, January 12, 2010. Query: are cricket historians accepting this poem as valid evidence of cricket's roots?
1538.1 Easter Ball Play at Churches Ends in France
"Certain types of ball games had a prominent place in heathen rituals and were believed to promote fertility. Even after Christianity had gained the ascendancy over the older religion, ball continued to be played in the churchyard and even within the church at certain times. In France, ball was played in churches at Easter, until the custom was abolished in 1538. In England, the practice persisted up to a much later date."
The abolition in France is attributed to an act of the French Parlement.
Brewster, Paul G., American Nonsinging Games [University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK, 1953] pp. 79-89. Submitted by John Thorn, 6/6/04. Brewster gives no source for the French dictum, nor for the "later date" when Easter play ceased in England.
Bob Tholkes (email of 10/4/2017) found a later source: Dawn Marie Hayes, “Earthly Uses of Heavenly Spaces: Non-Liturgical Activities in Sacred Place”, in Studies in Medieval History & Culture, Francis G. Gentry, ed., Routledge, 2003, p. 64.
Can the actual text be retrieved?
1540.1 A Pitcher, a Catcher and a Batter in a Golf History Book?
Cary Smith [ZinnBeck@aol.com] has noted an alluring illustration in a 1540 publication, and we seek additional input on it. In a posting to the 19CBB listserve in March 2008, Cary wrote:
"On the British Library web site in the turning pages section there is a book called the Golf Book, but it is labeled as 'Flemish Masters in Miniature.' On page seven of the book there is a small grisalle border at the bottom. It looks like what today would be considered a pitcher, catcher, and batter. The book is from 1540. To access the web site you will need to have Flash running. If on a Macintosh that is intel based you will need to click the Rosetta button in the info window of your web browser." Note: can you help us interpret this artwork?
The URL is http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html.
It's not a "golf history" book. It's an illustrated prayer book, Called a "golf book" because on the bottom of page 1 is a scene of men playing golf (or colf, the Flemish counterpart). The bottom of page 7 is cut off in the website so I couldn't see the game played.
Golf was played by Scots as early as 1421 (cf. the Battle of Beauge, in France), and in 1457 King James II of Scotland banned golf play in order to get Scots to practice archery instead ("And that fut ball and golf be utterly cryit doune and not usyt"). Golf was played in Charleston and Savannah, USA in the late 1700s, but died out in the US until revived in the 1880s (cf. Oakhurst course, WV 1884, and St. Andrews near NYC, 1888. See https://www.pga.com/story/oldest-golf-courses-in-america). The first golf club in Canada was established in 1873.
The Dutch also claim to have "invented" golf, or Kolf, and claim that Flemish traders brought the game to Scotland. [ba]
1540c.2 Nobleman Recalls "Palm Play" in Royal Court
So cruel prison how could betide,alas,
As proud Windsor [Castle]? Where I in lust [pleasure] and joy
With a king's son my childish years did pass
. . .
Where each of us did plead the other's right;
The palm play [handball?], where despoiled [disrobed] for the game,
With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball and got sight of our dame,
[The full selection, and email notes by John Bowman, are shown below.]
Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey), So Cruel a Prison, Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd edition, 1983: from Songes and sonettes, written by the right honourable Lorde Henry Howard, late Earle of Surrey (London, A. R. Tottel, 1557).
We are not certain that "palm play" could have been a baserunning game. It may be an Anglicized form of jeu de paume, a likely French antecedent to tennis.
The reference to "large grene courtes" in the full ball-play stanza suggests a tennis or handball-type pastime.
Have scholars indicated the likely nature of "palm play?" Could it have involved the batting of a ball with the palm?
1550c.1 No English Reference Claimed for the Word "Cricket" Found Before 1550
"The medieval origin of the national game of the English is beyond doubt, but not so its Island roots. There would have been ample opportunity for it to figure on the lists of banned games set out by their kings, but there is no written mention of it before 1550. It is, of course, not impossible that its forerunner was one of the many ball games played with unidentifiable rules, as for instance club ball."
From an unidentified photocopy in the "Origins of Baseball" file at the Giamatti Center at Cooperstown. (Found c. 2006)
Note: the inconsistencies among the preceding cricket entries in Protoball (see 1478.1) need to be resolved . . . . or at least addressed
1550c.2 Very Early Cricket Play Recalled at Southern England School.
A 1598 trial in the Surrey town of Guildford includes a statement by John Derrick, then aged 59. According to a 1950 history of Guildford's Royal Grammar School, "[H]e stated that he had known the [disputed] ground for fifty years or more and that 'when he was a scholar in the free school of Guildford, he and several of his fellows did run and play there at cricket and other plays.' This is believed to be the first recorded mention of cricket."
Brown, J. F., The Story of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, 1950, page 6.
Note: it would be interesting to see the original reference, and to know how 1550 was chosen as the reported year of play.
Note: Derrick would have been about 10 years old in 1550.
Is it possible that this source is the basis for the claim (see 1550c.1) that the term cricket ("crekett") is not known prior to 1550?
1555c.1 English Poet Condones Students' Yens "To Tosse the Ball, To Rene Base, Like Men of War"
"To shote, to bowle, or caste the barre,
To play tenise, or tosse the ball,
Or to rene base, like men of war,
Shall hurt thy study naught at all."
Crowley, Robert, "The Scholar's Lesson," circa 1555, in J. M. Cowper, The Select Works of Robert Crowley [N. Truber, London, 1872], page 73. Submitted by John Bowman, 7/16/2004. Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, see pages 230 and 312. Cited in Thomas L. Altherr, “There is Nothing Now Heard of, in Our Leisure Hours, But Ball, Ball, Ball,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1999 (McFarland, 2000), pp. 188.
Any idea what "rene base" might have meant in those days? Could it refer to a much older form of the team-tag game later known as prisoner's base?
1562.1 Cricket Forerunner an "Unlawful Game?"
"The Malden Corporation Court Book of 1562 contains a charge against John Porter alias Brown, and a servant, for 'playing an unlawful game called "clycett."'"
Brookes, Christopher, English Cricket: the Game and its Players Through the Ages (Newton Abbot, 1978), page 16, as cited in Bateman, Anthony,"'More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen . . . ;' Culture, Hegemony, and the Literaturisaton of Cricket," Sport in History, v. 23, 1 (Summer 2003), page 29.
1564.1 Formal Complaint in Surrey: Stoolball is Played on Sunday
"1564 - complaints were made to the justices sitting at the midsummer session, at Malden, Surrey, that the constable (himself possibly an enthusiast with the stool and ball) suffered stoolball to be played on Sunday."
M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Surrey is the adjoining county to Sussex. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references.
1565.1 Bruegel's "Corn Harvest" Painting Shows Meadow Ballgame
Bruegel the Elder
"We had paused right in front of [the Flemish artist] Bruegel the Elder's "Corn Harvest" (1565), one of the world's great paintings of everyday life . . . .[M]y eye fell upon a tiny tableau at the left-center of the painting in which young men appeared to be playing a game of bat and ball in a meadow distant from the scything and stacking and dining and drinking that made up the foreground. . . . There appeared to be a man with a bat, a fielder at a base, a runner, and spectators as well as participants in waiting. The strange device opposite the batsman's position might have been a catapult. As I was later to learn with hurried research, this detain is unnoted in the art-history studies."
From John Thorn, "Play's the Thing," Woodstock Times, December 28, 2006. See thornpricks.blogspot.com/2006/12/bruegel-and-me_27.html, accessed 1/30/07.
1567.1 English Translation of Horace Refers to "the Stoole Ball"
"The stoole ball, top, or camping ball/If suche one should assaye/As hath no mannour skill therein,/Amongste a mightye croude,/Theye all would screeke unto the frye/And laugh at hym aloude."
Drant, Thomas, Horace His Arte of Poetrie, Pistles, and Satyrs Englished, and to the Earle of Ormounte, [London], per David Block, page 166. There is no implication that Horace himself refers to a stool ball.
1570c.1 Five Indicted for Stoolball Play on Sunday
"A few years later [than 1564], at the Easter Sessions in the same town [Malden, Surrey], one Edward Anderkyn and four others were indicted for playing stoolball on Sunday."
M. S. Russell-Goggs, "Stoolball in Sussex," The Sussex County Magazine, volume 2, no. 7 (July 1928), page 318. Surrey is the adjoining county to Sussex. Note: we need to locate the full citations for this and all other Russell-Goggs references.
1575.1 Gascoigne's Poem "The Fruits of War" Refers to Tut-ball
Gascoigne, George, The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire, Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour [London, Richard Smith], per Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 166. The key lines: "Yet have I shot at master Bellums butte/And throwen his ball although I toucht no tutte."
1583.1 Pre-teens Risk Dungeon Time For Selves, or Their Dads, by Playing Ball
"Whereas this a great abuse in a game or games used in the town called "Gede Gadye or the Cat's Pallet, and Typing or hurling the Ball," - that no mannor person shall play at the same games, being above the age of seven years, wither in the churchyard or in any of the streets of this town, upon pain of every person so playing being imprisoned in the Doungeon for the space of two hours; or else every person so offending to pay 6 [pence] for every time. And if they have not [wherewithal] to pay, then the parents or masters of such persons so offending to pay the said 6 [pence] or to suffer the like imprisonment." (Similar language is found in 1579 entry [page 148], but it lacked the name "Typing" and did not mention a ball.)
John Harland, editor, Court Leet Records of the Manor of Manchester in the Sixteenth Century (Chetham Society, 1864), page 156. Accessed 1/27/10 via Google Books search: "court leet" half-bowls. Note: The game gidigadie is not known to us, but the 1864 editor notes elsewhere (page 149, footnote 61) that was "not unlikely" to be tip-cat, and he interprets "typing" as tipping. As later described [see "Tip-Cat" and "Pallet" at http://retrosheet.org/Protoball/Glossary.htm], tip-cat could be played with a cat or a ball, and could involve running among holes as bases. Caveat: we do not yet know what the nature of the proscribed game was in Elizabethan times.