A word or two on ball-play.
Fives was our old hand-tennis, and is a very ancient game.
In the fourteenth century there was a game at ball, where a line, called the cord, was traced upon the wall, below which the stroke was faulty. Some of the players were on foot; others had the two hands tied together, or played in a hollow cask.[193]
Hand-ball was before the days of Homer. He introduces the princess Corcyra, daughter of Alcinous, king of Phœacia, amusing herself, with her maidens, at hand-ball:—
“O’er the green mead the sporting virgins play;
Their shining veils unbound, along the skies,
Tost and re-tost, the ball incessant flies.”[194]
It is related of St. Cuthbert, who lived in the seventh century, that “whan he was viii yere old, as he played at the ball with other chyldren, sodeynly there stode amonge them a fayre yonge chylde,” who admonished Cuthbert against “vayne playes,” and seeing Cuthbert take no heed, he fell down, wept sore and wrung his hands; “and than Cuthbert and the other chyldren lefte their playe and comforted hym; and than sodeynly he vanyshed away; and than he knewe veryly that it was an angel; and, fro than forth on, he lefte all such vayne playes, and never used them more.”[195]
Ball-play was formerly played at Easter in churches, and statutes passed to regulate the size of the ball. The ceremony was as follows: the ball being received, the dean, or his representative, began an antiphone, or chant, suited to Easter-day; then taking the ball in his left hand, he commenced a dance to the tune, others of the clergy dancing round, hand in hand. At intervals the ball was handed or tossed by the dean to each of the choristers, the organ playing according to the dance and sport: at the conclusion of the anthem and dance, they went and took refreshment. It was the privilege of the lord, or his locum tenens, to throw the ball, and even the archbishop did it.[196]
The French palm-play consisted in receiving the ball and driving it back again with the palm of the hand. Anciently they played with the naked hand, then with a glove, which, in some instances, was lined; afterwards they bound cords and tendons round their hands, to make the ball rebound more forcibly; and hence, says St. Foix, the racket derived its origin.
In the reign of Charles V., palm-play, which, Strutt says, may properly enough be denominated hand-tennis, or fives, was exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for large sums of money; and when they had lost all that they had about them, they would sometimes pledge a part of their wearing apparel rather than give up the game. The duke of Bourbon having lost sixty francs at palm-play with M. William de Lyon, and M. Guy de la Trimouille, and not having money enough to pay them, gave his girdle as a pledge for the remainder.