Basic Renaissance Handball

I've been asked recently about good historical outdoor games for reenactors and I realized I hadn't put together a single, consolidated set of instructions for early modern handball as I currently teach it. So that's what this is.

This doesn't have any rules whose invention depends on the existence of purpose-built tennis courts, but it otherwise conforms to the rules given by Juan Luis Vives in 1540. The result is, I believe, a decent conjecture at how the game would have been played in southern Europe ca. 1500.

Teaching Handball

Last week I had the opportunity to teach conjecturally-medieval handball to eight eager students and get them playing the game. Here are my current thoughts on how to get it going successfully.

Landlord, Fill the Flowing Bowl

Landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it doth run over
Landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it doth run over
For tonight we'll merry be, for tonight we'll merry be,
For tonight we'll merry be -
Tomorrow we'll be sober

Knattleikr: the Hurstwic Rules

Hurstwic is a Viking-age reenactment group in New England which plays a reconstructed version of knattleikr at some of their events.

Unstated, but evident, in the Hurstwic reconstruction is the notion that knattleikr is a member of the football family. As in football games, a ball is to be transported to the end of the field to score; unlike most, the players are also equipped with sticks, which are used both to start the plays and to impede the progress of opposing players. Given their placement of knattleikr in relation to other games, it's a great reconstruction - simple, but with the essence of the family in place, and with rules that make sure the ball will periodically be struck with the sticks and fly across the field.

Stoolball - the Ealdormere rules

Within the Society for Creative Anachronism (the reenactment group of which I am a part), the regional group which comprises the vast majority of Ontario has apparently revived Stoolball as a common part of their events. This is their reconstruction, which by necessity owes its rules to accounts of stoolball and other safe-haven games from well after the SCA's time period of study (which ends in 1600):