Bowling Games

Dagonell the Juggler discusses the history and rules for games in which balls are thrown at a stationary target. Also online at www.florilegium.org/files/ENTERTAINMENT/Boules-Bocce-art.html

A single establishment might well serve multiple functions. While a single building might serve as a church for the Glory of God and yet at the same time be a hospital to tend to the sick and injured, another multi-purpose establishment might be combination restaurant, bar, gambling den, and brothel. One such establishment has left a curious document, which details various games played and wagers placed within, during the later years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first. These games include Hazard, Basset, High Roll, Quilles, Shove-Groat, Landsquenet, Ranter Go Round, Poch (or Glic), Alquerque A Doz, Queek, and the Game of the Goose.

Links to extant pieces of pre-17th century gaming equipment, as well as depictions of people playing games.

The history and rules for a few different bowling games, with period illustrations of the games.

During the middle ages the game of Stoolball was popular with women, its heyday being from the 15th to the 19th century. The game of stool ball is believed to be the origins of modern cricket. a came called 'creay' was being played by boys in the 13th century. Cricket as is became known in the 15th century was played by both men and women without fixed number of players. The ball was rolled, hence 'bowling.'

Philip Stubbes started writing around 1581 producing small tracts in which he sharply denounced the manners, pastimes, fashions and culture in England. His major work, The Anatomie of Abuses, was first published in 1583.

P hilip Stubbes had a gift for keen observatio n. Although his comments should not be considered to reveal mainstream thought or opinions of the time, (even his contempora ries thought him extreme) his virulent attacks on the abuses in fashion and English society provide us with a detailed, colorful and picturesqu e glimpse into the England of Shakespear e's youth.