Thursday, February 01, 2007
When Gaming Threatened to Wreck Society... in Tudor England
We aren't the first people to think maybe games are getting out of hand. Back in the Tudor Age, in England, the situation became serious enough that a series of laws were passed to get people back to what they were “supposed to be doing.” It wasn't video games that were sucking up peoples time then, of course, but tennis, bowling, and skittles. What men and boys were supposed to be doing in their free time was playing at archery - so that in time of war (think Agincourt) there would be plenty of experienced, skilled archers to send out with the mounted troops and pikemen.
Even so by 1512 the English Parliament thought that the illegal games were drawing so many people away from archery as a leisure sport that the nation was in peril: “archery and shooting in longbows is right little used but daily mininsheth, decayeth and abateth more and more.” Possibly your boss or teacher can sympathize. Again in 1542 Parliament passed even stricter measures, angered that sly gamers had evaded the previous laws by inventing new games, such as shuffleboard - or shove ha'penny as it was at first - and were now playing at these. The situation was bad enough that bowmakers, unable to make a decent living in England, were beginning to move to her traditional enemy: Scotland. So games other than archery became legal only when licensed, and most people were forbidden to play any games except at Christmas. Now, there's an argument to use when your parents wants you to drop the Wii and socialize during the holidays: “Aww, Mom, have a heart: even during the middle ages they let people play games during Christmas - unless they needed help burn a witch or something!”
In case you're wondering, yes there were plenty of guns on every battlefield in the sixteenth century; but they weren't yet cheap and effective enough to entirely displace archers, and in any case the English were more conservative than other armies, preferring to what had worked well for them before. (Your boss or teacher might agree with that sentiment too.)
It's worth mentioning that these “games” weren't exactly the same then as they are now. For instance football (soccer), which had been outlawed in 1314, had a field that was often miles long. Both men and women could play, and there was no restriction on the size of each team. Rules were scarce: so long as you didn't draw a weapon or actually kill an opponent; you could stop whoever had the ball in any way you possibly could, and however violently - without penalty. One reason given for suppressing football at the time was that seriously wounded players tended to nurse their resentments for some time afterward.
There's more about life in those “good old days” between the pages of such books as “A Brief History of the Tudor Age” by Jasper Ridley, Robinson, Constable & Robinson, London, 2002 which was originally published as “The Tudor Age” in 1998, which I've drawn from liberally for this comparison to modern mores - if, of course, you can stopping playing games for long enough to read.
There's a lot we don't know and can't read about those times however.For instance we don't know when paper airplanes were invented, or whether anyone played with them then - although paper may have been too expensive to give to children. No doubt the designs up at BestPaperAirplanes.com were unknown, but Leonardo Da Vinci does mention some kind of glider that involved paper in his notes, and origami was common.
Even so by 1512 the English Parliament thought that the illegal games were drawing so many people away from archery as a leisure sport that the nation was in peril: “archery and shooting in longbows is right little used but daily mininsheth, decayeth and abateth more and more.” Possibly your boss or teacher can sympathize. Again in 1542 Parliament passed even stricter measures, angered that sly gamers had evaded the previous laws by inventing new games, such as shuffleboard - or shove ha'penny as it was at first - and were now playing at these. The situation was bad enough that bowmakers, unable to make a decent living in England, were beginning to move to her traditional enemy: Scotland. So games other than archery became legal only when licensed, and most people were forbidden to play any games except at Christmas. Now, there's an argument to use when your parents wants you to drop the Wii and socialize during the holidays: “Aww, Mom, have a heart: even during the middle ages they let people play games during Christmas - unless they needed help burn a witch or something!”
In case you're wondering, yes there were plenty of guns on every battlefield in the sixteenth century; but they weren't yet cheap and effective enough to entirely displace archers, and in any case the English were more conservative than other armies, preferring to what had worked well for them before. (Your boss or teacher might agree with that sentiment too.)
It's worth mentioning that these “games” weren't exactly the same then as they are now. For instance football (soccer), which had been outlawed in 1314, had a field that was often miles long. Both men and women could play, and there was no restriction on the size of each team. Rules were scarce: so long as you didn't draw a weapon or actually kill an opponent; you could stop whoever had the ball in any way you possibly could, and however violently - without penalty. One reason given for suppressing football at the time was that seriously wounded players tended to nurse their resentments for some time afterward.
There's more about life in those “good old days” between the pages of such books as “A Brief History of the Tudor Age” by Jasper Ridley, Robinson, Constable & Robinson, London, 2002 which was originally published as “The Tudor Age” in 1998, which I've drawn from liberally for this comparison to modern mores - if, of course, you can stopping playing games for long enough to read.
There's a lot we don't know and can't read about those times however.For instance we don't know when paper airplanes were invented, or whether anyone played with them then - although paper may have been too expensive to give to children. No doubt the designs up at BestPaperAirplanes.com were unknown, but Leonardo Da Vinci does mention some kind of glider that involved paper in his notes, and origami was common.
