A Prize Playing was a test of martial skill popular in Renaissance England with the London-based Corporation of Masters of the Noble Science of Defence. It involved several dozen bouts against continually refreshing opponents, with little or no rest in between.
This practice was revived after a fashion in the late 17th century in the form of "Prize Fights", whence the term prizefighting for modern professional boxing.
Read more about Prize Playing: Renaissance Prize Playings, Prize Fights, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words prize and/or playing:
“He saw, he wish’d, and to the prize aspir’d.
Resolv’d to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)