Medieval Fun And Games

In the SCA I have focused a lot of my research on Medieval Sports and Games. I am currently in the process of writing a book about the subject.

Many people believe that life in medieval Europe was a pretty hard life for the average person, work all day to feed your family with no time for fun and games. While this is partially true it should be noted that Sundays you could not work, as well as a number of other religious holidays. Playing sports and games during these days was encouraged.

This article will outline some popular sports and games as well as keep a link list of some great sites to check out.

Medieval people loved playing games of all sorts, from simple card games to complex sports. Games sometimes had significance such as a means to train in case they were needed for military service, but often were just a way to blow of steam. Some games such as tennis developed out of the church, and were actually part of many religious festivals.

Most people think of tournaments when they think of sporting events in the medieval ages, however tournaments really only happened in the late medieval period and was basically the equivalent of the big leagues. More common sports such as Stoolball and medieval football were the sports of the masses. Football has a long history, and in some areas bore a closer resemblance to American style football than to European football which American's call soccer.

A Work In Progress

I am currently in the process of writing a book on the subject of Medieval Sports and games. I raised some funds using Indiegogo for editing, but for the most part it will be self published. I know my market well being involved in the SCA and I do not believe very many publishers can offer my any additional assistance, nor would they be interested in the niche market I am aiming at.

The book will contain a wide variety of board games, games of dice, card games, team sports, individual sports, and other active games. It looks into the rich history of games and how they evolve over time. Some games such as curling, billiards, and bocce are familiar while others such as stoolball, noddy, laugh and lie down, and knattleikr have been forgot by most. The book is not just aimed at being an academic study of the existence of these games during the medieval times, but instruction manual on how the games were played.

Here is a collection of some of my favorite pages about medieval games.