I argue in this essay that, in the early modern period sport was encouraged for pleasure, sociability and excitement as well as for financial gain, most sports were condemned at least in a small way, though it was more for reasons of religion and fears over public disorder than the sport itself.
In Start of Play David Underdown details the fondness the second Duke of Richmond had for the game of cricket and writes of the team Slindon that their “rise to metropolitan fame was made possible” by his patronage. [1]Derek Birley like Underdown demonstrates an understanding of the role of the elite in taking part in sponsoring and codifying sport. The fighter Jack Broughton secured the approval of a set of rules, “agreed by several gentlemen at Broughton’s amphitheater, Tottenham Court Road, August 16, 1743.”[2] Sport in general was criticised at one point or other for profaning the sabbath and legislated against under the pretext of preventing public disorder. Some sports were met with more favour than others, cricket seems to have been accepted a bit more than football, but even in consideration of this it does not seem to have been hard across the period, most of the time, to play football. The blood sport of baiting appears to be the only pastime condemned in a context outside of religion or fears of public disorder, however it was not outlawed until 1835, after the period which is the subject of this essay. Emma Griffin in England’s Revelry: A History of Popular Sports and Pastimes notes that in the seventeenth century the status of bull baiting as a sport was “unquestioned.” [3]
Sport was enjoyed across society. The gentry and the elite played a crucial role in encouraging a variety of sports. Cock-fighting was often promoted by the aristocracy. Mains were advertised in newspapers alongside the horse racing calendar, many fights were touted as contests between gentry of different counties.[4] Along with dog-fights cock-fights were organised between different settlements. [5] Robert Malcolmson like Underdown notes the profligacy of cock-fighting advertisements in printed media, the German tourist von Uffenbach observed the confluence of classes at the blood sport, recording that people gathered with no distinction of place. [6]
Some pursuits were hallmarks of regal, genteel or high status. The father of George III Prince Frederick was a patron of cricket, teams were fielded in his name. [7] Queen Anne at forty three years of age, “drove up to sixty miles a day in pursuit of game.” [8] Oliver Cromwell played “bowls with the Swedish ambassador,” [9] and Henry VIII “flew every kind of hawk.” [10] Following a decision in 1616 by the Manchester justices prohibiting piping, dancing, bowling, bear and bull baiting or any “”profanation,”” on the Sabbath. King James in a 1618 judgement rebutted Puritans for interfering with “”lawful recreations”” ordaining that, “after divine service on Sundays and other holy days piping, dancing, archery, leaping and vaulting and other harmless recreations were to be allowed. Yet he maintained existing legislation which forbade bear-and bull-baiting and other interludes on Sundays and bowling “for the meaner sort of people,” at all times. James ordered his 1618 judgement in Lancashire to be read in every pulpit in England and Scotland.” [11] Here we can discern, an approval from the very highest authority in the land, in the throne, of sporting and recreational activity. There is also an injunction against baiting, a theme we will revisit in an eighteenth century context.
As I have already observed, cock-fighting was promoted in the press, Thomas Hamill in the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies introduces the vicar George Wilson who believed men ought to identify with their cocks, the vicar extolled the virtues of the cock-fighting world and believed cock’s taught men to be good to their wives and courageous in battle. Hamill details not just cock-fighting as a public spectacle but also the discipline of preparing the cock for and to recover from battle. The blood sport was by no means the only sport that was organised for financial and commercial benefit. Owing to patronage from the second Duke of Richmond for example a “guinea or two was a useful supplement to the earnings of a craftsmen, and even more of an agricultural labourer,” and when a leopard was baited to death off Soho Square in 1716, “the cheapest seats were priced at 2s 6d, far above the reach the reach of servants or artisans.” [12]This event tells us not just that sport was encouraged but that it was already a financial enterprise designed for a market of spectators, that the prices would keep many workers away is reflective of an exclusivity which is commented on in discourses about viewing sport even in the present day.
Cricket was played at the famous Artillery Ground as early as 1725. George Smith was the manager at a time in the mid-eighteenth century. He charged an affordable 2d for admission. The crowds were “primarily apprentices and servants.” Underdown assigns to Smith a substantial role in the growth of cricket, writing that he “served as the commercial catalyst who linked the patronage still provided by the aristocracy, the interests of the professional players who could sell their skills and make at least a part-time living out the game, and the great mass of London residents -artisans, apprentices, tradesmen-who were willing to pay to watch it.” [13] Birley cites George Williams who sold refreshments at Ascot and cricket grounds in London. [14] Historiography widely records the genteel penchant for gambling on sports including cock-fighting and cricket. In 1727 at an amphitheater with a thousand seats and one thousand in the gallery James Figg fought Ned Sutton in front of “Walpole, the poets Pope, Swift and Colley Cibber and many fashionable ladies.” [15] The attendance of notables for pugilism is not surprising given the gentry, “served as patrons for the boxers of their choice and commonly were responsible for the purses.” [16]
The above examples detail monetary gains made by event hosts, players and providers of refreshments. This reality, along with a regulation in the seventeenth century where butchers were ordered to ensure their meat was baited as a prohibitive measure against unwholesome meat, as baiting was believed to improve the quality of meat; informs us of a thriving sporting economy encouraged and enjoyed across society in this period.
As the example of notables attending a fight reveals sport served in the early modern period as it does now as an opportunity for elite sociability. “In June 1773 Newcastle noted that Lewes Races and the Assizes were to be held during the same week, so that “when the gentleman are together we may know their sentiments as to the next election,”” [17] James E Evans has studied gambling in late Stuart culture and reveals the popularity of cards and dice with the gentry, his piece in Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture emphasize that there were a significant number of plays where the loss or honor through profligate behavior is the central theme. Evans writes that at the Stuart court gambling on cards and dice was an acceptable pastime, this example demonstrates the opportunity sport provided not just for elite sociability, but in this instance, elite conviviality, the intimacy of the card table facilitates an interaction often more personal, participatory and direct then for example cheering on a cock, where the yearns of the spectator are enjoyed vicariously through an animal. Further down the social scale card games were a fixture of middling sociability. Janet E Mullin in a 2009 piece in the Journal of Social History describes cards as occupying a place of light entertainment at middling social occasions, the game was a part of the convivial, hospitable setting and although money was gambled Mullin portrays players as generally responsible.
Sport from the top to the bottom of society was encouraged however it did cause anxiety and condemnation in some quarters. In 1622 in Sussex young men were prosecuted for playing cricket on Sunday evenings. [18] Under the Protectorate a 1654 ordinance made card playing and dicing “serious misdemeanors’.” The day before Shrove Tuesday a bellman’s proclamation forbade cock-throwing, dog tossing and street football. [19] Bull-baiting and other blood sports in the late eighteenth century were subject to condemnation however baitings were staged publicly and centrally in Liverpool, Chester and Preston, the bloodletting marked mayoral ceremonies and in Birmingham where the spectacle was especially popular baiting marked the start of a wake. [20] As late as 1750 the sport was provisioned by the Corporate authority in Alnwick, a workman was paid ten pence to get a rope to bait a bull. [21] Underdown writes that “sports, particularly those involving cruelty to animals, were coming under attack in the eighteenth century,” although he acknowledges, “they still retained their hold in many parts of England.” [22] William Hogarth’s Four Stages of Cruelty, 1751 depicts child indifference to animal suffering. The second picture depicts widespread animal cruelty including animals being clubbed. The series follows Tom Nero who is shown in the third picture, who had embarked on a career of highway robbery, the perpetrator of a murder, this conveys a message of cruelty to animals leading to violence towards humans. The fourth picture reveals Nero already hanged being dissected for the study of anatomy.[23] Although the example of Hogarth does show criticism of treatment of animals, Griffin has found, “it was the purchase, fattening, disease, sale, slaughter, and death of animals that were routinely recorded.” With respect to Griffin’s assertion that it was the commoditized value of animals that were of salient importance she does record that from, “1790, advertisements for bull-baiting no longer appeared,” and that by the late eighteenth century scholars “never failed to heap especial opprobrium on bull-baiting, throwing at cocks, and sometimes cock-fighting.” Griffin also cites commentary which associates this savagery with the lower orders and “scum.” [24]
We should not however get carried away with a view which places the enjoyment of baiting in an exclusively plebeian context, as I detailed above baitings marked mayoral ceremony and Malcolmson has found that during festivities to mark the mayor’s election in Liverpool, “”every house and window near the spot where the ball was baited, was adorned by the appearance of the most elegant ladies and gentleman in the town.”” [25] Similarly to Griffin Capp acknowledges that opposition to blood sports “occasionally reflected moral repugnance,” but attributes a “fear of disorder,” as the main factor. [26] It is not easy to say exactly why baiting stoked the ire of critics at this time. Although economic growth may have led to a desire to promote a politer use of the open public space where baitings were staged and the mere fact of the masses clustering publicly to partake in gratuitous bloodshed may have made the authorities nervous in the wake of the French revolution. It is to the anxiety caused by gatherings that I will now turn to provide examples of sport being discouraged.
Bernard Capp provides an insight into the clamp down on sport during the Interregnum. Capp like other historians records the policies against sport by the puritans and cites several prohibitive orders regarding horse-racing, cudgel-fights and football. In the 1650s “authorities were alarmed by the threat to public order, and attempted in vain to stop crowds flocking to watch cudgel-fights and wrestling matches in Moorfields and Lincoln’s Inn Fields.” Following an ordinance which banned cock-fighting in 1654 “a gentleman in Shoe Lane was arrested and bound over for advertising a cock-fight at his house in what must have been an act of deliberate defiance.” Horse races were banned ephemerally before being reinstated on many occasions amid fears meetings could be used by royalists, Capp provides an instance showing these fears were well founded, “Royalists had indeed planned to use race-meetings to launch nationwide risings in the spring of 1655.”
Football did not escape the wrath of the Interregnum, following disorders a blanket ban of the sport along with cudgel-play and cock-throwing was installed in Maidstone in 1653. [27] It is of no surprise that football did not manage to escape punitive measures. Football in the early modern period was a world removed from the codified game we know today. The sport often included an abundance of players played across wide un-delineated spaces, it often spilled onto the streets and was violent in nature, kicking being permitted and hence likely to disturb the authorities’ notions of good order and a peaceable public space.
Malcolmson offers attention to the puritan condemnation of sport, noting that to present oneself at church was not enough, people were ordered of a Sunday to praise God “for the entire day.” Malcolmson also provides an answer to the failure of puritans in their drive to prohibit sport. In the early seventeenth century, puritan clergymen who failed to read King James’s declaration, “found their positions in jeopardy-some were censured, others suspended, a few were even deprived of their livings.” Even during the interregnum, evidence suggests puritans struggled to suppress sport. Crucial to the flourishing of sport was that “may men of property were themselves attracted to and involved in the customary recreational practices.
They supported cock-fighting with enthusiasm and patronized these athletic sports which readily allowed for gambling.” [28] There was a clear moralist drive against sport accompanied by fears of public disorder in the Interregnum but there was always a push back, people persisted in their aim to enjoy pastimes.
In conclusion sport was encouraged at the top and bottom of society. The elite stimulated sport providing patronage for cricket for example, placing stakes and paying players, creating a sporting economy. King James’s 1618 declaration was the highest approval of sporting activity. The staging of cricket matches at the Artillery Ground is an early example of how sport was commoditized and enjoyed widely, the attendance of the notable at boxing bouts reflects the approved status of sport in the upper echelons on society. For religious reasons, all kinds of sport were the subject of disapproval at some point in the early modern period, more so over fears of dissolution than the content of any given sport, long before the interregnum puritanical lamentations of sport were common and under the protectorate sport in general was the subject of prohibitive legislation. During the interregnum sport was often precluded as the authorities feared gatherings could be made with a view to overthrowing their authority or cause general disorder. In the late eighteenth century blood sports met with opprobrium, “in 1776 a London newspaper called bull-baiting a “cruel, inhuman practice.”” However blood sports still survived. The 1662 Act of Settlement which saw the House of Lords “recreated as if the Commonwealth had never been,”[29] expunged legislation against Sunday sport and likely accounts for the flourishing of pastimes here on in. Some sports were encouraged and condemned more than others, the nature of football in this period described above meant it was likelier to be met with disapproval than cricket for example which was met with genteel affection.
Bibliography
David Underdown, Start of Play: Cricket and Culture in Eighteenth Century England, 2000
Derek Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 1993
Emma Griffin, England’s Revelry, A History of Popular Sports and Pastimes, 2005
James E Evans, ‘A scene of utmost vanity’: The Spectacle of Gambling in Late Stuart Culture, Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, Volume 31, 2002, pp. 1-20
Elaine Mckay, ‘For refreshment and preservinge health’: the definition and function of recreation in early modern England, Historical Research, 81: 211 (2008), pp 52-74
Thomas A Hamill, ‘Cockfighting as Cultural Allegory in Early Modern England,’ Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 39: 2 (2009), pp. 375-406
Robert W Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society, 1700-1850, 1973
Bernard Capp, England’s Culture Wars, Puritan Reformation and its Enemies in the Interregnum 1649-1660, 2012
Janet E Mullin, ‘We had Carding’: Hospitable Card Play and Polite Domestic Sociability amongst the Middling Sort in Eighteenth Century England, Journal of Social History, Vol. 42, No. 4 (summer 2009) pp. 989-1008
Richard Grassby, The Decline of Falconry in Early Modern England, Past & Present, (Nov, 1997), pp 37-62
[1] David Underdown, Start of Play, 2000, 53
[2] David Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 1999, 119-20
[3] Emma Griffin, England’s Revelry, A History of Popular Sports and Pastimes, 2005, 59
[4] Underdown, Start of Play, 31
[5] Griffin, England’s Revelry, 157
[6] Robert W Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society, 1700-1850, 1973, 49
[7] Underdown, Start of Play, 63
[8] Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 103
[9] Bernard Capp, England’s Culture Wars, Puritan Reformation and its Enemies in the Interregnum 1649-1660, 2012, 215
[10] Richard Grassby, The Decline of Falconry in Early Modern England, Past & Present, (Nov, 1997), pp 37-62, 41
[11] Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 79-80
[12] Underdown, Start of Play, 71-79
[13] Underdown, Start of Play, 88-92
[14] Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 117
[15] Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 109-110
[16] Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English society, 56
[17] Underdown, Start of Play, 59
[18] Underdown, Start of Play, 12
[19] Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 85-88
[20] Griffin, England’s Revelry’, 64-65, 148
[21] Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society, 66
[22] Underdown, Start of Play, 29
[23] Hogarth: Hogarth’s Modern Moral Series, The Four Stages of Cruelty, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/hogarth/hogarth-hogarths-modern-moral-series/hogarth-hogarths-4
[24] Griffin, England’s Revelry, 120-135
[25] Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society, 68
[26] Capp, England’s Culture Wars’, 210
[27] Capp, England’s Culture Wars’, 205-207, 215-216
[28] Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society, 11-13
[29] Birley, Sport and the making of Britain, 91