Amusements.
The greatest pastime of the nobility was that of war, and the joust and the tournament were the most attractive amusements because they most resembled war. The young men engaged in a sport known as tilting at quintain, which was designed to prepare them for warfare. The figure of a Saracen with a saber or club in its right hand and a shield on the left arm was hung up so that it would turn about very readily. A young man on horseback with a lance or something similar, as in a joust, would ride at the figure and strive to strike it between the eyes or on the nose, for if some other part was struck the figure would be turned round so as to give the rider a blow on the back with the saber or club, which not only brought a laugh at his expense, but also helped to teach the young candidate for knighthood to aim accurately another time. This was practiced on other objects, as, tilting at a tree or post or at a ring. Another military exercise was throwing the spear or javelin, which might be at the quintain or some other object or to throw it to the greatest distance. Learning to throw with the sling was also another military exercise. Another great sport in the early times of this period was that of archery. Foot-races took place and likewise wrestling.
Hunting has ever been a great sport in England. The ancient Britons were hunters, as were the Saxons and also the Danes in England. But it remained for the Normans to bring hunting to a system, for they were not content to hunt in an open country, but took up thousands of acres and enclosed them in parks and stocked them with game and prohibited the common people from hunting within them, passing severe laws against such. There was a form of hunting that is most striking and became a great rage, which was hawking or falconry. This was greatly indulged in by both men and women and the birds they used for taking the other birds were highly trained and brought great prices. This was the sport of the gentility and common people were not at all allowed to partake of it. Fishing was another sport, as was horse-racing and bull-baiting and cock-fighting. Throwing at cocks was another brutal amusement, wherein a heavy stick was thrown at a bird and if knocked over it belonged to the thrower if he could run and catch it before it could get to its feet.
The people managed so as to get quite a bit of pleasure out of their religion. One pastime was the wakes. On an evening preceding a saint's day the people went with lighted candles to the church, which was originally for the purpose of worship, but later it came to be a time for dancing and singing and eating, hawkers and peddlers congregating about the church to serve the crowd. Another church affair was the church ales. The church officials would brew a large quantity of ale before a holiday when there would be gatherings of people who bought and drank the ale, the profits being used for the good of the church. Another amusement was hocking, which took place on the Monday or Tuesday following the second Sunday after Easter. Men would hold a rope across a road and take toll of every woman passing or else women would have charge of the rope and collect toll off the men, the receipts going into the church treasury. The miracle and morality plays and the like, too, though intended as a means of instruction, became really a form of amusement for the masses.
Christmas was a great time for merry-making. One of the affairs at the time was mumming. Masks were used and disguises put on so as to impersonate all kinds of people and even animals. These mummers would make calls on people and sometimes even on high personages, making their entrances and exits without saying anything. May-day was a great occasion. Upon this day the houses would be decorated with flowers and branches from trees. There would be the dance about the May-pole and many games and plays. There were fair days, when people came together for traffic and for sports. There were sack races for the young men and smock races for the young women. Also there were wheelbarrow races and other kinds of races and contests. One such contest was the grinning match, where each person in the contest would thrust his head through a horse's collar and they would then vie with one another in grinning. In the yawning match, they would wait till late at night when all were tired and sleepy and then each would try to yawn the greatest. The one that yawned the widest and the most naturally and would thereby cause the most yawns from all present would win the prize.
It was a custom during this period for kings and great nobles to have Fools, who were the butt of all and who made all the butt of their jokes. They also kept minstrels in their households. Sometimes these minstrels played on different kinds of musical instruments and formed a musical band. Among the musical instruments were the ruible (a two-stringed instrument played with a bow), the veille (an instrument somewhat like a violin), the gitern (a kind of guitar), the harp, bagpipe, trumpet, pipe, lute, dulcimer, tambourine, and cymbals. There were a number of other kinds of entertainers, as, acrobats, rope-walkers, jugglers, contortionists, and conjurers. There was wire-dancing, rope-dancing, ballet-dancing, and sword-dancing. There were dancing bears and trained monkeys. There were entertainers who disguised themselves as birds and other animals and imitated their actions and cries. Dancing was, also, an amusement of the middle ages and it was indulged in by the nobility and all classes of the people.
There were plays acted in the castles and the towns and the colleges and the schools and even in the churches in the way of mysteries and moralities. There were strolling bands of players that attended wakes and fairs and played in barns and taverns and even in the farmhouse kitchen, wherever they might find place. "I shall transcribe out of Hall a description of a play which was acted by the boys of St. Paul's School, in 1527, at Greenwich. The occasion was the despatch of a French embassy to England, when Europe was outraged by the Duke of Bourbon's capture of Rome, when the children of Francis I. were prisoners in Spain, and Henry, with the full energy of his fiery nature, was flinging himself into a quarrel with Charles V. as the champion of the Holy See.
"At the conclusion of a magnificent supper 'the king led the ambassadors into the great chamber of disguisings; and in the end of the same chamber was a fountain, and on one side was a hawthorne tree, all of silk, with white flowers, and on the other side was a mulberry tree full of fair berries, all of silk. On the top of the hawthorne were the arms of England, compassed with the collar of the order of St. Michael, and in the top of the mulberry tree stood the arms of France within a garter. The fountain was all of white marble, graven and chased; the bases of the same were balls of gold, supported by ramping beasts wound in leaves of gold. In the first work were gargoylles of gold, fiercely faced, with spouts running. The second conceit of this fountain was environed with winged serpents, all of gold, which griped it; and on the summit of the same was a fair lady, out of whose breasts ran abundantly water of marvellous delicious savour. About this fountain were benches of rosemary, fretted in braydes laid on gold, all the sides set with roses, on branches as they were growing about this fountain. On the benches sate eight fair ladies in strange attire, and so richly apparelled in cloth of gold, embroidered and cut over silver, that I cannot express the cunning workmanship thereof. Then when the king and queen were set, there was played before them, by children, in the Latin tongue, a manner of tragedy, the effect whereof was that the pope was in captivity and the church brought under foot. Whereupon St. Peter appeared and put the cardinal (Wolsey) in authority to bring the pope to his liberty, and to set up the church again. And so the cardinal made intercession with the kings of England and France that they took part together, and by their means the pope was delivered. Then in came the French king's children, and complained to the cardinal how the emperour kept them as hostages, and would not come to reasonable point with their father, whereupon they desired the cardinal to help for their deliverance; which wrought so with the king his master and the French king that he brought the emperour to a peace, and caused the young princess to be delivered.'"[216]
The game of dice was found in England from an early period, as the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were much given to it, and during the Middle Ages dice were in great force and much used in gambling. There were also chess and draughts and domino and backgammon. Cards came into use late in this period, perhaps not earlier than the latter part of the fourteenth century, and seem not to have been much used in England before the middle of the fifteenth century. Gambling was very common among all classes, so much so that one of the restrictions in the indenture of apprentices was that they should keep from places where gambling was carried on. Some of the guilds had to pass laws that no help would be given a member who got into trouble or fell into poverty through playing dice.
Ball-playing was engaged in during the Middle Ages, just as in all ages and in all countries. The ball was, perhaps, more of a favorite in England than in any other country in Europe. They had club-ball, one player throwing the ball and another striking it with a straight club; cambuc or bandy-ball was probably a kind of golf, as the ball was struck on the ground with a curved club, called a bandy; pall-mall must have been a kind of croquet, as a wooden ball was used which was struck with a mallet and driven through arches of iron, there being an arch at each end of the grounds; in hand-ball the ball was struck with the palms of the hands against a wall or over something, being somewhat like tennis without a racket, and then later tennis with net and racket came to be played; there was foot-ball, the ball being kicked about by the foot.
Tip cat was a game played with a piece of wood called a cat, pointed at each end much like a double cone, which was laid on the ground in the center of a large ring; the player would strike one end of the cat with a stick, causing it to fly upward, which he then tried to strike to knock it out of the ring. There was bowling, many villages having bowling-greens. They also played quoits, fox and geese, and other kinds of outdoor games.
Young people played in the games and indulged in the sports mentioned in the foregoing and children played many of them, and also they had many other sports, such as spinning tops, catching butterflies and beetles, playing blind man's buff, and the like.