Controlling
Recreation and Maintaining the Class Divide
Richard J. Hayton
BA Medieval
and Early Modern History
While the seventeenth-century puritanical laws against
entertainments are infamous in English history, it is rather little-known that
several Acts had already infringed on the recreational freedom of the working
class in the centuries prior. The most complex and intrusive of these arrived
during the reign of Henry VIII in 1541; this was the ‘Acte for the Mayntenance
of Artyllarie, and debarringe of unlawful Games’, or the Unlawful Games Act.
Essentially, it forbade the lower classes from playing most recreational games,
such as cards and dice games, but also the likes of tennis and bowling, whilst
reserving the privilege for the wealthy and highborn. The ‘middling sort’ –
those beneath the gentry – could be met with hefty fines for hosting or playing
games, except for at Christmas. The other part of the Act is more notorious, as
it was the last in a series of medieval and early-modern laws which required
Englishmen to regularly practice longbow archery. Mandatory archery practice
and the prohibition of games might seem like an unusual pairing, but as the
preamble of the Act explains, the popularity of newly-devised games was seen as
the “reason where of archery is sore decayed and daily [was] like to be more
and more minished.”[1]
Yet, this explanation surely seems terribly inadequate, to believe that the
competition of other games was as detrimental to archery as to necessitate a
large-scale ban for the lower classes. What else might have inspired such an
Act? Was the intention to protect the realm from civil disorder arising from
games, or was the Crown inspired by an ever-growing moralism which condemned
“noxious, inordinate and unhonest games”?[2]
This article assesses potential rationales for the Unlawful Games Act 1541 and,
considering it within a sequence of oppressive medieval and early modern laws,
exposes a longstanding precedent of conditioning social order, controlling
which activities and behaviours were appropriate for different classes. The
Unlawful Games Act took advantage of a moralist society in order to reserve
recreational games as privileges of the peerage, while maintaining the
obligation of the ‘middling sort’ to work in accord with other legislation.
It would be erroneous to wholly disregard the Act’s provided
explanation, as indeed the rationale of protecting archery cannot be entirely
disingenuous. In fact, it is well evidenced; over a century earlier in 1388, an
Act of Richard II imposed a ban on a number of games, (chief among them a new
sport akin to cricket), while simultaneously commanding serfs and peasants to
practice the longbow.[3]
Henry VIII’s particular concern with preserving archery is apparent, too, as in
an era in which archery was in true decline, Richard II’s law of required
practice was reasserted and extended by the Longbow Statute of 1515. The
preservation of the longbow can be understood as a matter of English pride, as
the victory provided at Agincourt was renowned, and not too distant in memory.
Yet, ultimately it no longer represented the same profound military advantage,
even if the Unlawful Games Act did speak of England losing its skilled bowyers
to Scotland in terms of divulging a secret military technology.[4]
Englishmen were abandoning archery not because of the distraction of games, but
because of a loss of faith, and the failure of magistrates to enforce practice
laws.[5]
The correlation between the abandonment of archery and the popularity of other
games can be readily disproved by the behaviour of local magistrates. While
most towns enforced the prohibition of unlawful games, they still neglected to
seriously enforce the archery mandate.[6]
The ban on games was comparatively acceptable, demonstrating a grave lack of
enthusiasm for archery. In 1577, the Privy Council conceded that archery might
instead be in decline because people believed it “to be no use for service as
they see the caliver so much embraced at present.”[7]
This was the age of gunpowder, and to compete militarily with the continent,
the Crown had to prioritise arming and training soldiers with guns. Hence,
there is reason to believe the Crown was not entirely honest about its
objectives, and it is reasonable to investigate alternative rationales.
A legal precedent might be observed which explains the
Unlawful Games Act as a device to protect civil peace. Similar acts which
banned games were devised in order to tackle crime and disruption, which were
strongly associated with games of all kinds. Games played in taverns were often
the recorded origin of quarrels, brawls and other anti-social behaviour which
threatened civil peace.[8]
For instance, an Act of Edward IV in 1477 forbade gambling houses and a
plethora of new games. The outward objective of this was not to forbid the
games themselves, but rather to prevent them from degenerating into such
anti-social behaviour.[9]
All kinds of games could constitute a public nuisance. In 1446 the Bishop of
Exeter complained of “…ungodly-ruled people within the said cloister have
exercised unlawful games, as the top, queke, penny-prick, and most at tennis,
by the which all the walls of the said cloister have been defouled and the
glass windows all to-burst.”[10]
‘Queke’ was likely a game akin to hopscotch, and penny-prick was merely a coin-
tossing game.[11] If even such trivial games as these were not
harmless, perhaps it was justified to forbid so many. However, the greatest
public nuisances had always been sports, which required countless prohibitions
from local authorities as well as the Crown. Most chaotic of all was football,
which in those times involved inordinate mobs, boundless play and violence
between participants. An abundance of contemporary complaints illustrate the
problems. In 1608, the court leet of Manchester imposed a ban, describing
“glasse windowes broken yearlye and spoyled by a companie of lewd and
disordered persons.”[12]
With little success, football had been banned across England five times between
1349 and 1540. Considering these broad problems, and the many bans enacted to
tackle them, there is certainly a precedent for the Unlawful Games Act to share
that purpose, at least as a secondary objective; but it was not a primary goal.
Previous acts which banned games to protect civil peace, such as Edward IV’s
1477 act, overtly describe this objective. Meanwhile, the Unlawful Games Act
fails to mention this cause, and doesn’t even describe the games using any
disparaging language, which would be expected. ‘Chaotic’ sports like football
go unmentioned, implying that they were not a priority, (though they were
incorporated as ‘any other Manner of Game prohibited by any Estatute heretofore
made’).[13]
Finally, Section 15 of the Unlawful Games Act is clearly contrary to the 1477
Act and the aim of crime prevention. This section allows for the purchase of
‘placards’, which were essentially licenses to operate a gambling house
legally.[14]
A special provision to protect gambling houses is unusual, considering that the
1477 legislation identified a singular issue in the rampant criminal activity
arising from them.[15]
Mary I would later abolish these licensed gambling houses with the express
purpose of confronting ‘robberies and many other misdemeanours’, further
attesting that the Unlawful Games Act had neglected a significant problem. For
these reasons, tackling anti- social crime and protecting civil peace can be
disqualified as a fundamental motive of the Unlawful Games Act.
One of the most conceivable alternative explanations for the
Act is that it was inspired by popular moralism, which actively disparaged
games throughout the medieval and early-modern periods. It was this growing
puritanism, spurred on by the reformation, which would eventually motivate
Cromwell’s infamous anti-recreational laws of the seventeenth century. However,
despite the prominence of moralism in Tudor England, it hardly influenced the
Crown. The prominent issue of gambling can be used to demonstrate this claim,
as it can be proven in certain terms that the Unlawful Gaming Act was not
devised to tackle gambling. While the Act forbids traditional gambling games,
and though bets were also wagered regularly on games like tennis, it is
significant that a distinction is not made between gambling and non-gambling
games. One might argue that this could be an example of a linguistic turn, and
that the difference was not necessarily important in this period, but the
distinction of gambling was already well-established in theological writings.[16]
Gambling is only specified in the Act in relation to the aforementioned
licensing of gambling houses, which obviously fails to condemn gambling.
Plainly, the Crown was disinterested in the morality of gambling. If they were,
then surely the Unlawful Games Act wouldn’t make such specific provisions for
the upper classes. It was atypical of English acts to involve gambling before
the eighteenth century. Gambling was a major pastime of the Tudor kings, who
commonly enjoyed gambling at card and dice games, as well as wagering on tennis
and archery contests.[17]
It was by no accident that Henry VIII inherited his father’s bad habit; he had
been introduced to gambling at a young age. He had been playing cards and dice
games since at least 7, and aged 11 the prince received a sum of 66s 8d,
(approximately £1,500 in today’s money), specifically for ‘my lord of York to
play at dice’.[18]
While the Crown was not influenced by moralism, it still had a role in this
legislation. In explaining why local magistrates enforced the Unlawful Games
Act, McIntosh suggested that it was part of a moralist policy to control youths
and servants.[19]
The pervading moralist view of games as unwholesome and dishonest activities
helped to justify the Act to the same people it controlled. As seen throughout
history, moralism can be used as a tool of government to ensure social order.
A particular element of moralism served as an especially
important instrument of control in medieval and early modern legislation. This
was idleness; perceived as a shameful flaw, the idle man or woman failed to
contribute and fulfil their expected societal role. Idleness was most relevant
to English law wherein it represented the case against vagrancy: criminal
unemployment and homelessness. Failure to meet labour expectations, especially
willingly, was a breach of social boundaries. Idleness was used in this case as
a device to control the ‘middling sort’ by admonishing those ‘vagrants’ who
abandoned their societal role. Peasants and workers were confined to their
place of work and residence by the 1351 Statute of Labourers, so that
abandoning one’s work was not only a social wrongdoing, but a codified crime,
binding peasants to their masters.[20]
In 1563, during Elizabeth I’s reign, the Statute of Artificers further
entrenched these confines, and enshrined the obligation of peasant class to
work.[21]
Laws of this kind are the visible surface of those which define the status of
the working class, conditioning their ways of life and even what activities are
appropriate for them.[22]
If these laws shape the economic lives of the working class, then the Unlawful
Games Act imposes upon recreational life. The games prohibited by the Unlawful
Games Act were ‘idle and vaine pastymes’ perceived to offend God; and another
Elizabethan statute identified card and dice games as tools of ‘rogues and
vagabonds’.[23]
[24]
The Unlawful Games Act was not influenced by any of the moral criticisms of
games themselves; rather, in light of the laws against vagrancy, it targeted
the failure to work in accordance with social status.
The establishment was preoccupied with maintaining social
boundaries, and shaping ideas of which activities and behaviours were
appropriate for people of different classes. This involved the confinement of
what the ‘middling sort’ were permitted to do, but only for the sake of
expanding the social domain of the gentry and aristocracy. Maintaining this
class separation was what distinguished certain activities as noble. Commoners,
therefore, must be barred from the recreational activities which belonged to
the upper class. Idleness was not in the same way a problem for the nobility,
for whom many recreational activities represented a part of their societal
role. Games and sports held important social functions as tools of hospitality
and personal image, and they could be manipulated as demonstrations of wealth
and magnificence. Indeed, accomplishment in some activities, such as dancing,
could be essential social skills for men and women at court.[25]
The key tool for distinguishing noble recreations from common games was
inaccessibility. For instance, courtly dancing was kept distinct from the
agrestic flavour of peasant dance by exclusivity of setting and social circles.
Another example is jousting, preserved by its enormous expense and martial
requirement; but the most prominent is hunting, already safeguarded by age-old
property laws which severely punished poachers. These activities ostensibly
belong to the ruling class because the rest of society were reliably excluded
already, often simply by the intrinsic nature of the activity. Meanwhile, many
games, even tennis: ‘the sport of kings’, were fairly accessible to common
people, and therefore they required supplementary legislation in order to be
reserved for the elite. This is the objective of the games ban in the Unlawful
Games Act, evidenced by the design of specifically unobtrusive exemptions for
the upper class. In addition to being exempted from games bans themselves,
sections 22 and 23 awarded masters the right to authorise visitors and their
servants to play games.[26]
With this authority, a matter-of-course is protected; gentlemen can continue to
use games as a tool of hospitality with their guests, and as a means to reward
their servants. The Unlawful Games Act served as supplementary legislation to
further encroach on the lifestyles of common people, in order to safeguard the
nobility and privilege of recreations like tennis and gambling.
The Unlawful Games Act of 1541 is a most curious entry in
early-modern English law, which conditions the recreational lives of the common
people in spite of mysterious objectives. The outward explanation for the Act –
to preserve archery – is inadequately convincing, considering the intrusive
extent of the games prohibition. In light of the language of the statute, it is
also unlikely that confronting games-related crime was foremost objective at
the heart of the Act. If these were genuine concerns, then they failed even
more certainly in either case. Rather than sharing similarities with previous
acts which prohibited games, the Unlawful Games Act instead has more in common
with acts like the Statute of Artificers, which imposed boundaries on the
freedoms of the working class. The Unlawful Games Act is particularly
unprecedented, going beyond controlling economic working lives by imposing
which recreational activities are appropriate for people of the working class.
This prohibition of games might be seen as an attempt by the establishment to
reserve them as exclusive noble privileges, akin to other inaccessible
recreations such as hunting. If this interpretation is to be accepted, then it
suggests that the Crown approached social construction intelligently, working
to proactively maintain the social divide and distinctive lifestyle differences
between classes. Examining other inconspicuous statutes within this context of
social conditioning might produce further interesting insights about the nature
of agendas in early modern legislation.
References
‘Unlawful Games Act’, 33 Hen. VIII c. 9, (1541).
Coulton, G. G., Chaucer and His England, (Frankfurt,
2018). 12 Rich. II c. 6, (1388).
Gunn, Steven, ‘Archery Practice in Early Tudor England’, Past
& Present, 209, (2010), pp.53-81. McIntosh, Marjorie Keniston, Controlling
Misbehaviour in England, 1370-1600, (Cambridge, 1998)
Muchembled, Robert, A History of Violence: From the End of
the Middle Ages to the Present, (Cambridge, 2012).
17 Edw. IV c. 3, (1477).
Shillingford, John, ed. Stuart A. Moore, The Shillingford
Letters, (Ann Arbor, 2018).
Manchester Court Leet Rolls, (12th October 1608).
Robert, Pierre, ‘Les origines de la répresson des jeux en
droit anglo-saxon: le contrôle de l’Homo ludens dans l’Angleterre du XIVe au XVIe siècle’, Droit &
Société, 17-18, (1991).
Hutchinson, Robert, Young Henry, (London, 2011).
‘Statute of Labourers’, 22 Edw. III c. 8, (1351).
‘Statute of Artificers’, 5 Eliz. I c. 4, (1563).
McKay, Elaine, ‘‘For refreshment and preservinge health”: the
definition and function of recreation in early modern England’, Historical
Research, 81, 211, (2008), pp.52-74.
‘Vagabonds Act’, 39 Eliz. I c. 4, (1597).
[1] ‘Unlawful
Games Act’, 33 Hen. VIII c. 9, (1541), preamble.
[2] G.
G. Coulton, Chaucer and His England, (Frankfurt, 2018), p. 229.
[3] 12
Rich. II c. 6, (1388).
[4] ‘Unlawful
Games Act’, 33 Hen. VIII c. 9, preamble.
[5] S.
Gunn, ‘Archery Practice in Early Tudor England’, Past & Present,
209, (2010), p. 57.
[6] M.
K. McIntosh, Controlling Misbehaviour in England, 1370-1600, (Cambridge,
1998), pp. 96-107.
[7] S.
Gunn, ‘Archery Practice in Early Tudor England’, Past & Present,
209, (2010), p. 75.
[8] R.
Muchembled, A History of Violence, (Cambridge, 2012), p. 419.
[9] 17
Edw. IV c. 3, (1477).
[10] J.
Shillingford, ed. S. A. Moore, The Shillingford Letters, (Ann Arbour,
2018), p. 101.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Manchester
Court Leet Rolls, (12th October 1608).
[13] ‘Unlawful
Games Act’, 33 Hen. VIII c. 9, (1541), s. 11.
[14] ‘Unlawful
Games Act’, 33 Hen. VIII c. 9, (1541), s. 15.
[15] 17
Edw. IV c. 3, (1477).
[16] P.
Robert, ‘Les origines de la répresson des jeux en droit anglo-saxon: le
contrôle de l’Homo ludens dans
l’Angleterre
du XIVe au XVIe siècle’, Droit & Société, 17-18, (1991).
[17] R.
Hutchinson, Young Henry, (London, 2011), p. 46.
[18] R.
Hutchinson, Young Henry, (London, 2011), p. 47.
[19] M.
K. McIntosh, Controlling Misbehaviour in England, 1370-1600, (Cambridge,
1998), pp. 96-107.
[20] ‘Statute
of Labourers’, 22 Edw. III c. 8, (1351).
[21] ‘Statute
of Artificers’, 5 Eliz. I c. 4, (1563).
[22] P.
Robert, ‘Les origines de la répresson des jeux en droit anglo-saxon: le
contrôle de l’Homo ludens dans
l’Angleterre du XIVe au XVIe siècle’, Droit &
Société, 17-18, (1991).
[23] E.
McKay, ‘“For refreshment and preservinge of health”: the definition and
function of recreation in early modern England’, Historical Research,
81, 211, (2008), pp. 52-74.
[24] ‘Vagabonds
Act’, 39 Eliz. I c. 4, (1597).
[25] E.
McKay, ‘“For refreshment and preservinge of health”: the definition and
function of recreation in early modern England’, Historical Research,
81, 211, (2008), pp. 52-74.
[26] ‘Unlawful
Games Act’, 33 Hen. VIII c. 9, (1541), s. 23-23.
No comments:
Post a Comment