Last Updated August 15, 2007

 

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Females at Play

 

A Working Chronology

 

 

[Note: these 18 entries were compiled from version 0.8 of the Protoball Working Chronology, which comprised about 625 entries, in August 2007.  (Search terms: wom**, girl, ladies, maid, wench.) Additional relevant items may have been added to subsequent versions.  Readers are encouraged to suggest or perform updates.  Send notes about omissions, mistakes, typos, wrongheadedness, etc, to Lmccray@mit.edu.]

 

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1300s.3 -- Stoolball Said to Originate Among Sussex Milkmaids

“Stoolball is a ball game that dates back to the 14th century, originating in Sussex [in southern England].  It may be an ancestor of cricket (a game it resembles), baseball, and rounders. Traditionally it was played be milkmaids who used their milking stools as ‘wickets.’ . . . “ Later forms of the game involved running between two wickets, but “[o]riginally the batsman simply had to defend his stool form each ball with his hand and would score a point for each delivery until the stool was hit.  The game later evolved to include runs and bats.”

Source: Wikipedia entry on “Stoolball,” accessed 1/25/2007.  Note: this source does not credit bittle-battle [see entry 1086.1] as an earlier form of stoolball.  It gives no citations for the evidence of the founding dates or the early non-running nature of the game.  The Wikipeidia entry is compatible with entry #1330.1, below, but evidently does not see 1330 as the likely year of stoolball’s appearance.

 

1613.1 -- His and Her Stool-ball Banter: Play or Foreplay?

“Ward: Can you play at shuttlecock forsooth?

Isabella: Ay, and stool-ball too, sir; I have great luck at it.

Ward: Why, can you catch a ball well?

Isabella: I have catched two in my lap at one game

Ward:  What, have you, woman?  I must have you learn to play at trap too, then y’are full and whole.”

Dutton, Richard Thomas, Women Beware Women and Other Plays [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999], page 135.  The play itself is generally dated 1613 or 1614.  Submitted by John Thorn, 7/9/2004

1614.1 -- Poet Yearns to “Goe to Stoole-Ball-Play”

Breton, Nicholas, I Would, and Would Not [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168.  Stanza 79 reads “I would I were an honest Countrey Wench/ . . . / And for a Tanzey, goe to Stoole-Ball-Play.”  Tansy cakes were reportedly given as prizes for ball play.

 

1616.1 -- Translation of Homer Depicts Virgins Playing Stool-Ball, Disturbing Ulysses’ Snooze

Chapman, George, The whole works of Homer: prince of poets, in his Iliads, and Odysses [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 168.  Chapman describes a scene in which several virgins play stool-ball near a river while Ulysses sleeps nearby:  “The Queene now (for the upstroke) strooke the ball/Quite wide off th’ other maids; and made it fall/Amidst the whirlpools.  At which, out shriekt all/And with the shrieke, did wise Ulysses wake.  It is not reported how other translators have treated this scene.

 

1619.1 -- Bawdy Poem Has Wenches Playing “With Stoole and Ball”

Anonymous, Pasquils Palinodia, and His Progress to the Taverne; Where, After the Survey of the Sellar, You Are Presented witwh a Pleasant Pynte of Poeticall Sherry [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 169, who credits RH, page 74.  “It was the day of all dayes in the yeare/That unto Bacchus hath its dedication,/ . . . / When country wenches play with stoole and ball,/And run at Barley-breake until they fall:/And country lads fall on them, in such sort/That after forty weekes the[sic] rew the sport.”  Block notes that “Barley-Break” [not a ball game] was, like stoole ball, traditionally spring courtship rituals in the English countryside.

 

1634.1 -- Play Attributed to Shakespeare Cites Stool-ball

Fletcher, John, and William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 170.  A young maid asks her wooer to travel with her.  “What shall we do there, wench?”  She replies, “Why, play at stool-ball; what else is there to do?”  Block mentions that doubts have been expressed as to authorship.

 

1677.1 -- Almanac’s Easter Verse Mentions Stool-ball

“Young men and maids,/ Now very brisk,/ At barley-break and/ Stool-ball frisk.”

W. Winstanley, Poor Robin 1677.  An almanack after a new fashion, by Poor Robin [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 174.

1694.1 --Musical Play Includes Baudy Account of Stoolball

D’Urfey, Thomas, The comical history of Don Quixote [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 175.  Block sees a “long, silly, bawdy rap song” in this play.  It starts “Come all, great, small, short tall, away to Stoolball,” and depicts young men and women becoming pretty familiar. It ends “Then went the Glasses round, then went the lasses down, each Lad did his Sweet-heart own, and on the Grass did fling her.  Come all, great small, short tall, a-way to Stool Ball.”  Sounds like fun.

 

1733.1 -- Long Poem Describes Stool-Ball in Some Detail; First Evidence of Use of a Bat

The London Magazine, vol 2, December 1733 [London], page 637, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 177.  Block calls this account “the most complete and detailed portrayal of the game to date.”  It provides the earliest reference to the use of a bat, describes a game that does not involve running after the young ladies hit the ball, and includes a description of the field and the assembled audience.

 

1740s.1 – Intervillage Cricket Played by Women in Surrey and Sussex

Cashman, Richard, “Cricket,” in David Levinson and Karen Christopher, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present [Oxford University Press, 1996], page 88.

 

1748.1 – Lady Hervey Mentions Popular Schoolboy “Base-ball” in a Letter

Lady Hervey (then Mary Leppell) describes in a letter the activities of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales:  “[T]he Princxe’s family is an example of innocent and cheerful amusements.  All this last summer they played abroad; and now, in the winter, in a large room, they divert themselves at base-ball, a play all who are, or have been, schoolboys, are well acquainted with.  The ladies, as well as gentlemen, join in this amusement””

Hervey, Lady (Mary Lepell), Letters [London, 1821], p.139 [Letter XLII, of November 14, 1748, from London]. ||11||  Note: David Block, page 189, spells the name “Lepel,” citing documented family usage

 

1798.1 – Jane Austen Mentions “Baseball” in Northanger Abbey.

Jane Austen mentions “baseball” in her novel Northanger Abbey, written in about 1798 but published in 1818, after her death.  “Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books . . . . But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; so read all such works as heroines must read. . . “

Austen, Jane, Northanger Abbey [London, 1851], p.3.  This novel was written in 1798 and first published in 1818.

 

1811.6 -- Women Cricketers Play for Large Purse

Two noblemen arrange for eleven women of Surrey to play eleven women of Hampshire for a stake of 500 guineas a side.

Ford, John, Cricket: and Social History 1700-1835 {David and Charles, 1972], pp. 20-21.  Ford does not give a reference for this event.

 

1819.1 -- Science Text Uses Base-ball Heuristic Example

“Emily: In playing at base-ball, I am obliged to use al my strength to give a rapid motion to the ball; and when I have to catch it, I am sure I feel the resistance it makes to being stopped; but if I did not catch it, it would soon stop of itself.

“Mrs B.: Inert matter is as incapable of stopping itself as it is of putting itself in motion.  When the ball ceases to more, therefore, it must be stopped by some other cause or power; but as it is one with which your are as yet unacquainted, we cannot at present investigate its powers.”

Jane H. Marcet, Conversations on Natural Philosophy [Publisher?, 1819], page?  Note: Men Mendelson,  a retired professor at Marquette University, originally located this text, but attributed it to a different book by Mrs. Marcet.  David Block found the actual 1819 location.  He adds that while it does not precede the Jane Austen use of “base-ball” in Northanger Abbey, “I still consider the quote to be an important indicator that baseball was a popular pastime among English girls during the later 18th and early 19th centuries.”  David Block posting to 19CBB, 12/12/2006.

 

1824.3 -- English Novel Cites Base-ball as Girls’ Pastime

Mitford, Mary Russell, Our Village [London, R. Gilbert], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 191.  “Better than playing with her doll, better even than base-ball, or sliding or romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father’s knee.”  Block notes that this novel was published in New York in 1828.

 

 

1830s.13 -- “Baseball” Found in Several Works by Mary Russell Mitford

 “Everyone knows of Jane Austen’s use of the term baseball in her novel Northanger Abbey [see item #1798.1].  I recently came across, online, an 1841 anthology of works by the English essayist Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1865).  A search revealed five uses of the work “baseball.”  What is intriguing is that every reference seems to assume that “baseball” -- whatever it is -- is a familiar rough and tumble game played by girls (and apparently girls only) between the ages of 6 and 10 or so..

“Mary Mitford seems to have a pretty good idea of what the girls are playing, when they play at “baseball” -- but it seems to have little or nothing to do with the sport we now call by that name.  Does anyone know what it was?

The “baseball” usages:

[] “The Tenants of Beechgrove:” --  “But better than playing with her doll, better even than baseball, or sliding and romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father’s knee:

[] “Jack Hatch” -- see item #1828.9 above for two references.

[] “Our Village [introduction]”: “ . . . Master Andrew’s four fair-haired girls who are scrambling and squabbling at baseball on the other.”

[] Belford Regis:  “What can be prettier than this, unless it be the fellow-group of girls . . . who are laughing and screaming round the great oak; then darting to and fro, in a game compounded of hide-and-seek and baseball.  Now tossing the ball high, high amidst the branches; now flinging it low along the common, bowling as it were, almost within reach of the cricketers; now pursuing, now retreating, jumping shouting, bawling -- almost shrieking with ecstasy; whilst one sunburnt black-eyed gipsy throws forth her laughing face from behind the trunk of an old oak, and then flings a newer and gayer ball -- fortunate purchase of some hoarded sixpence -- among her happy playmates.

Submitted by Hugh MacDougall, Cooperstown12/6/2006:

 

1837.4 -- Trap-ball Found in Book of “Many Exercises and Exercises for Ladies”

Walker, Donald, Games and Sports; Being an Appendix to Manly Exercises and Exercises for Ladies [London], per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 201.  Most of this text covers gymnastic routines, but trap-ball is also included.  Note: Is this an early use of the term “manly” in sports?

 

1840.9 -- Englishman Sees Base-ball as Commonly Played by Adult Men and Women

Blaine, Delabare P., An Encyclopedia of Rural Sports [London, Longman, Orme, Brown, and Longmans], page 131, per David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It, page 204.  The book’s slight treatment of ball games states: “There are few of us of either sex but have engaged in base-ball since our majority.”

 

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