Real Tennis and the Civilising Process

Abstract

This article examines the social significance of Real Tennis among the Western European nobility during its heyday of the sixteenth century. Underpinned theoretically by Norbert Elias's seminal empirical work The Civilising Process, this article seeks to identify the societal preconditions for the emergence of Real Tennis, and provide explanations for its diffusion across Western Europe and subsequent boom in popularity among the nobility. A critique is offered of the current body of literature written on Real Tennis, with an aim to address a general lack of focus on the game's ‘social’ elements and how their development is linked with structural changes to the game over the centuries. The article then goes on to examine the ways in which Real Tennis became a symbol of prestige and a tool for social mobility among the increasingly status-competitive royal court nobility. Played during royal festivals, the game provided opportunities for nobles to engage in conspicuous consumption through architectural, clothing and gambling displays; having an entourage in accompaniment to the noble players; and, through the style of play and behavioural control, exhibiting self-restraint and foresight. Overall, an attempt is made to apply Elias's theoretical framework to aid our understanding of the development of Real Tennis, a game that has never been characterised by overt ‘violence’ of the kind examined previously by other sociologists employing an Eliasian framework.

Notes

1. Norbert Elias, The court society (Oxford, 1969).

2. See Lord Aberdare, The story of tennis (London, 1959); Lord Aberdare, The royal and ancient game of tennis (London, 1977); Lord Aberdare, The Willis Faber book of tennis and rackets (London: 1980); Lord Aberdare, ‘The origins of tennis’, in Lance Butler and Peter Wordie, eds., The royal game. (Kippen, 1989); Gianni Clerici, The ultimate tennis book: 500 years of the sport (Chicago, 1975).

3. See Heiner Gillmeister, ‘History of tennis’, Stadion: Journal of the History of Sport and Physical Education, 3 (2) (1977), pp. 187–229; Heiner Gillmeister, ‘Medieval sport: Modern methods of research – recent results and perspectives’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 5 (1) (1988), pp. 53–68; Heiner Gillmeister, Tennis: A cultural history, (Leicester, 1997).

4. Roger Morgan, ‘Timber tennis courts of the sixteenth century’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 6 (3) (1989), pp. 378–88; Roger Morgan, ‘The Silver Ball of Rattray: A note on an early form of tennis’, International Journal for the History of Sport, 8 (3) (1991), pp. 420–25; Roger Morgan, Tennis: The development of the European ball game (Oxford, 1995); Roger Morgan, ‘A fifteenth century tennis court in London’, International Journal for the History of Sport, 13 (3) (1996), pp. 418–31.

5. Pierre Barcellon, Rules and principles of tennis (Oxford, 1800/1987); David Best, The royal tennis court. (Oxford, 2002); Albert de Luze, History of the royal game of tennis (Kineton, 1933); Dutch Real Tennis Association, The royal game of tennis, available online at www.real-tennis.nl; Robert Henderson, Ball, bat and bishop: The origin of ball games, (New York, 1947); Greg Hoffman, The art of world team tennis. (San Francisco, 1977); Henry Johns, The early history of Real Tennis, available online at www.real-tennis.com/history/main.html; Julian Marshall, The annals of tennis (London, 1878); Evan Noel and James Clark, A history of tennis (London, 1924/1991); Malcolm Whitman, Tennis: Origins and mysteries (New York, 1932).

6. Norbert Elias, The civilising process (Oxford, 1939).

7. Roman Krznaric, The first beautiful game: Stories of obsession in Real Tennis (Oxford, 2006).

8. Ian Cooper, ‘Game, set and match: A developmental study of tennis, with particular reference to lawn tennis’ (unpublished MA dissertation, Leicester, 1995).

9. See Dominic Malcolm, ‘Cricket and civilising processes: A Response to Stokvis’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 37 (1) (2002), pp. 37–57; Dominic Malcolm, ‘The emergence, codification and diffusion of sport: Theoretical and conceptual issues’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 40 (2005), pp. 115–18; Dominic Malcolm, ‘A response to Vamplew and some comments on the relationship between sports historians and sociologists of sport’, Sport in History, 28 (2) (2008), pp. 259–79; Ruud Stokvis, ‘Sports and civilisation: Is violence the central problem?’, in Eric Dunning and Chris Rojek, eds., Sport and leisure in the civilising process: Critique and counter-critique, (Basingstoke, 1992), pp. 121–36; Ruud Stokvis, ‘The civilising process applied to sports: A response to Dominic Malcolm: Cricket and civilising processes’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 40 (2005), pp. 111–14; Wray Vamplew ‘Empiricist versus sociological history: Some comments on the “civilising process”’, Sport in History 27 (2) (2007), pp. 161–71.

10. Stokvis, ‘A response’, p. 113; Malcolm, ‘The emergence’, p. 116

11. Stokvis, ‘A response’, p. 113; Malcolm, ‘The emergence’, p. 116.

12. See Malcolm, ‘A response’.

13. Elias, Civilising process; Michael Kimmel, Absolutism and its discontents: State and society in seventeenth-century France and England (New Brunswick, NJ, 1988).

14. Jonathon Dewald, The European nobility 1400-1800 (Cambridge, 1996).

15. Jonathon Dewald, The European nobility 1400-1800 (Cambridge, 1996).

16. Elias, Civilising process.

17. Elias, Civilising process.

18. Dewald, European nobility; Elias, Civilising process; Denys Hay, Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (London, 1989).

19. Sydney Anglo, ‘The courtier: The Renaissance and changing ideals’, in Arthur Dickens, ed., The courts of Europe: Politics, patronage and royalty 1400–1800. (London, 1977), pp. 33–53; Elias,Civilising process.

20. Hay, Europe, p. 67.

21. Dickens, Courts, p. i.

22. Elias, Civilising process.

23. Norbert Elias, ‘An essay on sport and violence’, in Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, eds., Quest for excitement (Oxford, 1986), p. 151.

24. Dewald, European nobility; Elias, Civilising process, p. 190.

25. Dewald, European nobility; Elias, Civilising process, p. 182.

26. Dewald, European nobility; Elias, Civilising process, p. 190.

27. Elias, Civilising process.

28. Eric Dunning, Sport matters (London, 1999), p. 28.

29. Elias, Court society.

30. Mennell, Introduction, p. 83.

31. Elias, Civilising process, p. 189.

32. Elias, Civilising process; Elias, Court society.

33. Elias, Civilising process.

34. Kimmel, Absolutism; Roger Mettam, Power and faction in Louis XIV's France, (New York, 1988).

35. Mennell, Introduction, p. 83.

36. See Henderson, Ball, bat and bishop; Brian Jewell, Sport and games: History and origins (Kent, 1977); Whitman, Tennis.

37. Norman Wymer, Sport in England (London, 1949).

38. See the following work for more information regarding the ball games played by clergy in the Middle Ages: Aberdare, Willis Faber; Clerici, The ultimate; Cooper, ‘Game, set and match’; John Crace, A little history of tennis (Belfast, 1997); de Luze, History; Gillmeister, Tennis; Jack Groppel, Principles of tennis (Illinois, 1980); Harold Harris, Sport in Britain: Its origins and development (London, 1975); Henderson Ball, bat and bishop; Frank Menke, The encyclopaedia of sports (London, 1969); Gary Schwartz, The art of tennis 1874–1940 (California, 1990); Whitman, Tennis.

39. Aberdare, Willis Faber; de Luze, History; DRTA, Royal game; Hoffman, Art; Morgan, Tennis.

40. Aberdare, Willis Faber; DRTA, Royal game; Gillmeister, Tennis.

41. Elias, Civilising process, p. 189.

42. Morgan, Tennis.

43. Dunning, Sport matters; Stephen Hardy, ‘The medieval tournament: A functional sport of the upper class’, Journal of Sport History 1 (1) (1974), pp. 91–115; Thomas Henricks, ‘Sport and social hierarchy in medieval England’, Journal of Sport History, 9 (2) (1982), pp. 20–37; Rühl, ‘German tournament regulations of the 15th century’, Journal of Sport History, 17 (2) (1990), pp. 163–82.

44. Dewald, European nobility.

45. Richard Barber, The knight and chivalry, (London, 1970); Hardy, ‘Medieval tournament’; Henricks, ‘Sport’; Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens: A study of the play element in culture (London, 1949).

46. John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson, ‘Theorising sport, class and status’, in Jay Coakley and Eric Dunning, eds., Handbook of sports studies. (London, 2000), p. 311.

47. Hardy, ‘Medieval tournament’, p. 92.

48. Dunning, Sport matters, p. 50.

49. Barber, Knight.

50. DRTA, Royal game; Gillmeister, Tennis; Krznaric, The first; Morgan, Tennis; Whitman, Tennis.

51. Whitman, Tennis, p. 49.

52. Morgan, Tennis, p. 177.

53. Morgan, Tennis, p. 177.

54. Morgan, Tennis, p. 179.

55. Morgan, Tennis, p. 166.

56. DRTA, Royal game.

57. Morgan, Tennis.

58. Chris Ronaldson, Tennis: A cut above the rest, (Oxford, 1985), p. 1. A penthouse is a short sloping roof that sits about eight feet up and goes three-quarters of the way around the court, onto which a serve is played. A tambour is a jut in the wall on the receiving end that sticks out and, when hit, causes the ball to rebound at difficult angles. The grille is a small hole in the back wall of the receiving end that when hit into scores a winning point. The galleries are small windows along the side of the court below the penthouse that when hit into scores a winning point.

59. Morgan, Tennis, p. 140.

60. DRTA, Royal game.

61. DRTA, Royal game.

62. DRTA, Royal game.

63. Juan Delgado, Historia de la villa y corte de Madrid, 1860–1884 (Madrid, 1978).

64. Aberdare, Willis Faber; de Luze, History; Krznaric, The first; Morgan, Tennis; Ronaldson, Tennis.

65. de Luze, History.

66. Dewald, European nobility.

67. Aberdare, Willis Faber, p. 55.

68. Valerie Warren, Tennis fashions: Over 100 years of costume change (London, 1993), p. 1.

69. de Luze, History, p. 30; Krznaric, The first.

70. Marshall, Annals.

71. Teresa McLean, The English at play in the Middle Ages, (Windsor Forest, 1983); Morgan, 1995.

72. For more detail regarding royal and religious prohibitions against the playing of tennis, see Aberdare, Willis Faber; Clerici, The ultimate; de Luze, History; Gillmeister, Tennis; Morgan, Tennis; Noel and Clark, A history; Whitman, Tennis.

73. John Ashton, The history of gambling in England, (London, 1968); Roger Munting, ‘Social opposition to gambling in Britain: An historical overview’, International Journal for the History of Sport, 10 (3) (1993), pp. 295–312.

74. Krznaric, The first.

75. Clerici, The ultimate.

76. Hay, Europe; Munting, ‘Social opposition’; Wray Vamplew, Pay up and play the game: Professional sport in Britain, 1875–1914, (Cambridge, 1988).

77. Morgan, ‘Silver ball’.

78. DRTA, Royal game.

79. Jean Forbet, L'ordannance du royal et honorable jeu de la paume (1592), translated by Albert de Luze (Paris, 1933).

80. Louis-Claude de Manevieux, Traite sur la connoissance du royal jeu de paume, et des principles. (1783), translated by Richard Travers (Melbourne, 2004), p. 29.

81. Robert Lukin, A treatise on tennis, (London, 1822), pp. 82–3.

82. DRTA, Royal game.

83. Mennell, Introduction, p. 86.

84. Elias, Court society, p. 111.

85. Sheila Reilly, The royal and ancient game of tennis (Paper presented at the Tennis Collectors’ Society, London, 1998), p. 4.

86. Aberdare, ‘The origins’, p. 14.

87. Krznaric, The first, p. 17.

88. Allison Danzig, The royal and ancient game of tennis, (New York, 1997); Gillmeister, Tennis, p. 40; Jack Jennings, ‘”Real” tennis, anyone?’ Yankee, 64 (3) (2000), p. 52; Lukin, Treatise; Katherine McNicoll, Real Tennis (Buckinghamshire, 2005).

89. DRTA, Royal game; Peter Moss, Sport and pastimes through the ages, (London, 1962), p. 58.

90. Henricks, ‘Sport’, p. 33.

91. Antonio Scaino, Trattato del giuoco della palla (1555), translated by Anthony Negretti (London, 1984).

92. Scaino, Trattato, p. 85.

93. Scaino, Trattato, p. 85.

94. Marshall, Annals, p. 206.

95. Allen Guttmann, Sports spectators, (New York, 1986), p. 97.