Despite their importance to Baldassare Castiglione and Sir Thomas Elyot, the athletic games of early modern Europe have traditionally received little attention from academics. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a few writers of an antiquarian bent (J.-J. Jusserand, William Heywood, and Christina Hole) published trade books that surveyed the subject, but only since 1980 have scholarly studies been devoted to knightly tournaments, Renaissance ball games, and the set of physical sports and recreations that were intrinsic to the lifestyle of the courtier and the upwardly mobile bourgeoisie. This volume deals with a wide range of sports from the thirteenth through the seventeenth century. The articles show that early modern sports were not isolated, discrete pursuits, but rather, thoroughly integrated into the social, intellectual, religious, technological, and literary frameworks of their time.

Table de matières :
– John Mclleland, "Introduction : ’Sport’ in Early Modern Europe"
– Alessandra Rizzi, "Regulated Play at the End of the Middle Ages : the Work of Mendicant Preachers in Communal Italy"
– Uriel Simri, " The Contribution of the Responsum of Rabbi Moses Provençalo to the History of the Game of Tennis"
– Hugh M. Lee, " The Influence of Mercurialis’ De arte gymnastica on the Study of Greek Athletics"
– Brenda Dunn-Lardeau, " Régime d’exercices et sexualité des citoyens ordinaires selon Platina (XVe s.)"
– Greg Malszecki, "The Armoured Body : Knightly Training and Techniques for Combative Sports in the High Middle Ages"
– Marie Madeleine Fontaine, " L’athlète et l’homme moyen : le nouveau regard de la Renaissance"
– Joachim Rühl, " A Treasure-Trove : One of the Four Originals of the Tournament Regulations of Heilbronn"
– Michael Flannery (with Brian Merrilees and John McClelland), " The Rules for Playing Pall-mall (c. 1655)"
– Daniela Boccassini, " Chasse et fauconnerie du Moyen Age à la Renaissance : les recueils cynégétiques française"
– Bert Hall, " Firearms and Sports : Hunting"
– Serge Vaucelle, " L’éducation corporelle des aristocrates français à l’âge classique : la place des traits didactiques"
– Dylan Reid, " Enfants de la ville : Bourgeois Horsemanship and Combat Games in French Royal Entries"
– Paul F. Grendler, " Fencing, Playing Ball, and Dancing in Italian Renaissance Universities"
– Georges Vigarello, "Jeux populaires : les paris et les prix dans la France classique"
– Kazuhiko Kusudo, " P. H. Mair (1515-1579) : A Sports Chronicler in Germany"
– Jean-Michel Mehl, " La soule médiévale : essai d’interprétation"
– Heiner Gillmeister, "What Literary Works Can Tell Us about Sports and Games : A Fifteenth-Century Example"
– Sandra Schmidt, "Trois dialogues de l’exercice de sauter et voltiger en l’air : Strategies of Ennoblement of a Bodily Practice in the Sixteenth Century"
– Yvan Morin, " Conceptions du movement, de l’exercice, du jeu et du sport : de Marsile Ficin jusqu’au vingtième siècle"
– Arnd Krüger, " Swimming and the Emergence of Modern Spirit"