Middle Ages
For at least seven hundred years, entire villages have competed with each other in rough, and sometimes violent, ballgames in England (Shrovetide football) and Ireland (caid). In contrast, the game of calcio Fiorentino, in Florence, Italy, was originally reserved for the aristocracy. The aristocracy throughout Europe favoured sports as patrons as well as players with combat sports such as fencing and jousting being popular. Horse racing, in particular, was a favourite of the upper class in Great Britain, with Queen Anne founding the Ascot Racecourse.
Read more about this topic: History Of Sport
Famous quotes containing the words middle and/or ages:
“We hear the haunting presentiment of a dutiful middle age in the current reluctance of young people to select any option except the one they feel will impinge upon them the least.”
—Gail Sheehy (b. 1937)
“The gods are partial to no era, but steadily shines their light in the heavens, while the eye of the beholder is turned to stone. There was but the sun and the eye from the first. The ages have not added a new ray to the one, nor altered a fibre of the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)