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The field of play

The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, by Joseph Strutt. Printed in London by Thomas Tegg, 1845. Lower Library, E.34.1

This work is another example of how any picture we have of medieval and early modern sport must be assembled from many disparate and fragmentary sources. Reproducing a number of lively illustrations from medieval manuscripts, as well a great many other ancient sources, Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) attempts to form a detailed account of the sports and pastimes enjoyed by the people of England, including rural and domestic recreations, May games, mummeries, shows, processions, pageants, and spectacles from the earliest period to his time.

Many of these sports, such as wrestling, tennis, cricket, rowing, and skating remain readily recognisable to us today, whilst others, such as tip-cat, bandy-ball and quintain, have been superseded or faded into obscurity. A ‘rustic’ version of quintain is among the sports depicted, in which quintain’s usual formula of horse, rider, lance and target is replaced with peasants swinging ‘with much violence’ towards another, each with outstretched legs.

Also depicted are two variants of a game that involves tussling over a stick: proof, if ever it were needed, that one does not need the most sophisticated equipment in order to have a good time.

Strutt was an English engraver, artist, antiquary and writer. He spent the greater part of his life in service to his antiquarian and literary researches, with perhaps his most well-known work being his Dresses and Habits of the English People (1796–1799).

It was immediately following this that he began his Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), which was reprinted and revised several times. He states his motivation for writing the book as follows, but it could very well encapsulate that behind much of his life’s work:

In order to form a just estimation of the character of any particular people, it is absolutely necessary to investigate the sports and pastimes most generally prevalent among them. War, policy, and other contingent circumstances, may effectually place men, at different times, in different points of view, but, when we follow them into their retirements, where no disguise is necessary, we are most likely to see them in their true state, and may best judge of their natural dispositions.

Cornish pastimes << The field of play >> Between horse and rider

Gallery

The title page in a 19th-century printed book.
A contents page in a 19th-century printed book.
Page 122 in a 19th-century printed book, with three illustrations: a standing man tries to overthrow a seated one by striking the latter's extended foot with his own; a similar game, but with the former riding a swing; two men wrestle, seated on the ground with their feet touching, and their hands holding a stick.
Page 123 in a 19th-century printed book, with two illustrations: two men struggling for possession of a pole; a man in achieved possession.
Page 49 in an 19th-century printed book, with an illustration of two archers, one accompanied by a dog.
Page 53 in a 19th-century printed book, with two illustrations: two men with crossbows, one having shot a bird in a tree; five men at a crossbow range.
The bottom of the same page in a 19th-century printed book, with the illustration of five men at a crossbow range.
Page 72 in a 19th-century printed book, with an illustration of a man having loosed a sling.
Page 105 in a 19th-century printed book, with two illustrations of pairs playing a game with a bat and a ball.
Detail from a page in a 19th-century printed book, with an illustration of a man and a woman playing with a ball.
Detail from a page in a 19th-century printed book, with an illustration of a man jumping through a hoop held by two others.