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:
“What we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The best hand always believes in playing by the rules.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)