Although life was hard in the Middle Ages, there were opportunities for games, sports and entertainments. When the Thames froze over, Londoners skated on the ice and sometimes they made sledges of ice and slid the ice blocks across the frozen river. It was the custom on Shrove Tuesday in the twelfth century for all the young men of London to 'go out into the fields to play at a well known game of football'. One medieval writer recalled his childhood and could remember playing pinch me, follow my leader, marbles, hockey, swings, soldiers, charades, hide and seek, high jumping, tops, bubble pipes, making mud balls, damming up a stream, getting his feet wet and fighting other boys.
Entertainment could be provided by minstrels such as those shown in this church carvin
g. There were travelling shows with dancing bears and horses playing the tambourine. Mummers used to dress up and perform plays and make music. In 1377 a group of Londoners dressed up as knights, cardinals, emperors and squires entertained the company at Kensington Palace. The musicians played trumpets, sackbuts and cornets and there was food, drink, dancing and playacting.
In the towns there were frequent performances of Mystery Plays. Although these were religious plays, they were often very funny and good entertainment. Many of the Mystery Plays were organised by the Guilds and they often had a complicated list of props.
There were many different types of Medieval Sports in the Middle Ages. The majority of which were designed to increase skills and fitness of fighting men. The sports included the following:
- Archery - Archery contests were especially popular
- Colf - the ancestor of Golf ( a sport for the nobles)
- Gameball - a simple football game
- Hurling or Shinty - a similar game to hockey
- Horseshoes - throwing horseshoes at a target
- Jousting at Tournaments
- Quarter-staff contests
- Skittles - an ancestor of modern ten-pin bowling
- Stoolball - an ancestor of Cricket
Question to discuss on our History Forum :
How many of these games are still played today?
The Growth of Towns during Middle Ages in England written by Monique Barb for FamousWhy.com
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England History : Entertainment and Sport in Middle Ages Images Sources : factropolis.com
Britain in the Middle Ages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia