A Christ Church undergraduate in 1702 says, 'after breakfast I go for a walk with my friends; we talk together, and stir one another to jocularity and laughter, in fact mingle serious things with play'. Those who cared to go further afield went for 'a nutting day', like Crosfield of Queen's in 1626; or walked out to eat 'puddings' at Joan of Headington's or a dish of fish at Godstow." Others might get as far as Gosford on the Bicester road, where dwelt 'Mother Louse' of 'Louse Hall', a famous ale-wife, whose praises are sung by Vernon : " 6 Hanc tenet immortalis anus, quae lecta coquendo anus, quae plurima condit Ipsa dapes, hilari vultu multoque lepore Saepe die festo, musarum cultor ab urbe Currit et attonitus cervesae munera laudat. In treating of 'unlawful games', I have already shown that tennis was played at Oxford as early as 1508, and that two courts could be definitely located at the north end of Cat Street, at Smith Gate, in 1530. There is ample evidence to show the popularity of the game down to the present day. John Earle of Merton, describing 'a meere young gentleman of the Universitie' in 1628, says that 'the two markes of his seniority is the bare velvet of his gowne and his proficiency at Tennis, where when he can once play a set, he is a Freshman no more'. This tallies with George Wither's account of his entry at Magdalen in 1604, where, 'as other idle Freshmen doe', he wasted his time in sight-seeing, and Having this experience, and withall Atchieved some cunning at the Tennis-ball, 8 he was at last persuaded by his tutor to get to work in earnest. * Ib. iii. 491. 2 Diary, Aug. 25, Sept. 8, Sept. 15, 1626. 3 Wood, Life and Times, i. 231. Ib. i. 302, ii. 6, 267. 6 F. Vernon, Oxonium Poema, p. 9. 'Microcosmographie, ed. 1628, sig. E, 7 verso. 8 Abuses stript and whipt, ed. 1622, p. 2 (Spenser Society). Of the numerous tennis-courts (or racket courts, as they were often called), some have vanished and left no trace behind them. Cardinal College, afterwards Christ Church, owned a court shortly before 1546, somewhere in the parish of St. Michael's at South Gate, now St. Aldate's.1 In 1577 is recorded the lease of 'a certain sphaeristerium called le tenys court',2 on the east side of Vinehall Lane, now Alfred Street, somewhere at the back of the London and County Bank. Of the two courts which existed at Smith Gate in 1530, that on the west side of Cat Street is not mentioned again; but the other, which adjoined the octagonal Lady Chapel, and abutted at its south end on New College Lane, can be traced through a succession of leases by the City of Oxford down to about 1690, when it was converted into two dwelling-houses. But three of the ancient courts still remain, though only one, that in Merton Street, is now in actual use. In 1595 Merton College granted to John Lante, M.A., a lease of Postmasters' Hall 'with the backside and garden plot to the same belonging, and a tennise court of late built and erected thereon by the said John Lante'. Though often rebuilt, I imagine that this must be one of the oldest courts in England. The lease passed in 16105 into the hands of Thomas Wood, father of Anthony Wood, and remained in his family down to 1754. Wood sublet the court in 1647 to his servant Thomas Burnham, who issued a farthing token, inscribed with a tennis racket and ball, and the words 'Thomas Burnham at ye Tennis Court in Oxford'. In 1670 Burnham obtained from Christ Church a lease of the 'Unicorne', at the corner of St. Aldate's and Blue Boar Lane, where he built 'a fair and stately Racket Court... covered overhead, which it was not before'. Of the earlier open-air court on this site we have a note by Crosfield: 'dancing on the rope at the racket court by the 7 1 Ministers Accounts, Augmentation Office, 38 Hen. VIII, County of Oxford, roll 54, memb. 10. 2 Liber Albus Civitatis Oxon., p. 117. [The leases of this court, summarized by Manning, are now in MS. Top. Oxon. d. 202, pp. 441-57. There is no evidence that this court was ever roofed. For this court, see the account of Thomas Butler, who issued a token. Ed.] Merton College, Register of Leases. VI. 1, f. 44. Ib. VI. 1, f. 186 b. Wood, Life and Times, i. 69, 447. 6 Ib., passim. 8 MS. Book of Evidences at Christ Church, begun in 1655, f. 170. [For Burnham, see under the token-issuers.] Blewbore.'1 Tennis was played here down to about 1835,2 and the substantial ashlar walls of the court are still to be seen in Blue Boar Lane opposite the Police Station.3 The Old Tennis Court' in Oriel Street, now a College lecture room, is first mentioned in a lease of 1636 as 'the ground of ... Richard Edwards, now a tennis play'. It was at Mr. Edwards his tennice court' that Prince Rupert and the king were playing on December 28, 1642, when a messenger arrived from the Parliament with proposals for 'articles of accommodation'.5 In 1652 the court was leased to Thomas Woods or Wood, who carried on the business of a vintner and dancingmaster at the neighbouring Salutation Tavern. This court, too, remained in use till comparatively recent times,' and its outward appearance to-day is hardly altered from that which it presented in the seventeenth century. 6 Fives, like tennis, was at one time an 'unlawful game'. The statute of 1409-10 commands all labourers and servants to 'utterly leave playing at the balls, as well Hand ball as Foot ball'. Down to the middle of the sixteenth century the statutes of most of the Oxford Colleges contained a clause forbidding their members to 'play at ball against the buildings, walls or roofs', a prohibition obviously aimed at something like the Eton game of Fives, which was originally played between the buttresses of the chapel. But, as I have already pointed out, in the seventeenth century the University authorities came to recognize that it was wise to provide recreation 1 Diary, July 1635. 2 The building is shown as a tennis-court in a MS. Survey of the estates of Christ Church, dated 1829. [The first lease that mentions this court is Burnham's in 1670; but the Unicorne with its premises was leased to John Hensley or Henslow in 1645 and 1666, and Twyne MS. VI. 180-210 mentions (c. 1640) a pipe running from Carfax to Christ Church under Henslow's racket-court. The notice by Crosfield carries us back to 1635; and as the property was leased to John Launt, M.A., in Dec. 1587, who built the court at Postmasters' Hall, it is probable that he also built the court in Blue Boar Lane; but it was not roofed until 1670. Ed.] 3 Though now cut in two by a cart-way, the two portions are obviously parts of one building. ✦ I owe this note to the [late] Provost of Oriel. 5 Wood, Life and Times, i. 75. 6 Ib. i. 242. issuers. Ed.] [For an account of Thomas Wood see the article on the token 7 See a plan of some of the properties of Oriel made in 1814 and reproduced in Balliol Deeds (O.H.S.), p. 208. 8 'Prohibentes... pilarum ad aedes, muros, tegulas aut ultra fines jactitarum [sic]... ludum.' Statutes of the Colleges, 1853, iii. 66. K for undergraduates inside the Colleges, where they might be under some control. The change of policy is marked by the erection of a fives-court or 'ball-court', as it was called, at Exeter in 1590.1 Other Colleges followed suit. The court at Oriel was built during the Puritan régime in 1653 at a cost of £23, which was defrayed by a charge of 5s. a head on the admission of each commoner. Loggan's view of the College in 1675 shows that the court was provided with a comfortable wooden bench at the open end for spectators. Wood mentions ball-courts at Jesus, University, Balliol, and Hart Hall, between 1662 and 1663, and others are depicted in Loggan's views of Pembroke, Christ Church, and Merton. How long these College courts existed I cannot say; that at Pembroke was still in use in 1698, and Amherst remarks on revisiting St. John's in 1721, 'I missed the old Ball-Court where I have had many a game at Fifes when I was a young man'. It is significant that I have not found a single reference to the game during the eighteenth century. We now come to a set of pastimes which may be conveniently grouped together, as proficiency in them was considered essential to a polite education. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's scheme for the training of the aristocracy, about 1570, included a ‘dawncing and vawting schole', and riding the 'great horse'. In his treatise on The English Gentleman (1630), Richard Brathwaite commends fencing and dancing 'by our young Gentlemen usually affected; yea, and as especial Ornaments to grace and accomplish them, generally esteemed, the one to accommodate him for the Court, the other for the Camp'. Clement Ellis (1661) says of 'the True Gentleman' that he has just so much of the Dancing-School as will teach him how to laugh at those that have too much. He has made more use of the Vaulter and Fencer than the Dancer, for his desire was more to be a Man than a Puppit'. Writing on the subject of education in 1684, Locke places dancing among the accomplishments neces 1 Extructum sphaeristerium' (C. W. Boase, Reg. Coll. Exon., p. xciii). 2 D. W. Rannie, Hist. of Oriel College, p. 107. 3 Wood, City of Oxford, i. 68, 191, 358, 568. The view of Merton shows a group of undergraduates actually at play. 5 City Council Book D, f. 362. Nich. Amherst, Terrae Filius, ed. 1726, p. 184. Collectanea, i. 275 (O.H.S.). 8 Ed. 1630, p. 204. The Gentle Sinner or England's Brave Gentleman characterized, 2nd ed., 1661, p. 122. sary for a gentleman'; and states that 'fencing and riding the great horse are looked upon as so necessary parts of breeding, that it would be thought a great omission to neglect them'.' 2 Two of these accomplishments, vaulting and riding the great horse, require a word of explanation. The 'great horse', as distinguished from the racer and the hackney, was what we know to-day as a 'weight-carrier', a horse that would carry in the field or the tilt-yard a cavalier with his heavy pommelled saddle and cumbrous equipment of armour. The youth' of quality' was taught to handle his sword not only on foot, but on horseback, and to master those ornamental tricks of horsemanship which are now seldom to be seen but at a circus or a military tournament. Blome distinguishes 'that sort of Manege which is proper for the Cheval d'Escole' from that which belongs to the 'Cheval de Guerre'. The former, he says, 'is taught several Airs and Lessons, which as they require a great deal of Vigour and Address (as the Gallopado-Relevée, Caprioles, Ballotades, &c.) so they are necessary to be learnt in Academies, to give young men a firm and easy Seat, and a good Hand upon a Horse ... but are not in themselves absolutely necessary, nor of any use in action, unless at Carousels, Triumphs, and the like. The Cheval de Guerre is taught only such lessons as are necessary in the Field, and without which one cannot attack a good Horseman but upon very great disadvantage'. The art of vaulting', as I have shown elsewhere,' was closely allied to that of riding 'the great horse', and comprised various gymnastic exercises which were taught with the aid of a full-sized wooden model of a horse, the prototype of the vaulting-horse of our modern gymnasia. The art of riding the great horse never really flourished in Oxford. An attempt, indeed, was made by one Crofts in 1637 to set up a 'riding house', but failed owing to the opposition of Laud, then Chancellor of the University: For Mr. Crofts and his great horses, he may carry them back, if he pleases, as he brought them. For certainly it cannot be fit for the University, though the exercise in itself be exceeding commendable; for the gentlemen there are most 1 Some Thoughts concerning Education, Works, ed. 1824, viii. 190, 192. 2 The great horse was often known as the managed or dressed horse, from the French terms ménagé, dressée (trained). 3 R. Blome, The Gentleman's Recreation, 1686, ii. 4. Oxford Magazine, Feb. 20, 1913. |