Sports and Physical Exercise in Early Modern Culture ─ New Perspectives on the History of Sports and Motion

It is often assumed that a recognisably modern sporting culture did not emerge until the eighteenth century. The plethora of physical training and games that existed before 1700 tend to fall victim to rigid historical boundaries drawn between a€?moderna€? and a€?pre-moderna€? sports, which are concerned primarily with levels of regulation, organization and competitiveness. Adopting a much broader and culturally based approach, the essays in this collection offer an alternative view of sport in the early modern period. Taking into account a variety of competitive as well as non-competitive forms of sport, physical training and games, the collection situates these types of activities as institutions in their own right within the socio-cultural context of early-modern Europe. Treating the period not only as a precursor of modern developments, but as an independent and formative era, the essays engage with overlooked topics and sources such as court records, self-narratives, and visual materials, and with contemporary discussions about space, gender and postcolonial studies. By allowing for this increased contextualization of sport, the collection is able to integrate it into more general historical questions and approaches. The volume underlines how developments in early modern sport influenced later developments, whilst at the same time being thoroughly shaped by contemporary notions of the body, status and honour. These notions influenced not only the contemporary sporting fashion but the adoption of sports in elite education, the use of sports facilities, training methods and modes of competition, thus offering a more integrated idea of the place of sport in early modern society.

Rebekka von Mallinckrodt is Professor for Early Modern History at the University of Bremen. She has worked in the field of religious studies, history of the body as well as postcolonial studies. With regard to sports and physical exercise she has published Bewegtes Leben - KA?rpertechniken in der FrA?hen Neuzeit (Body Techniques in the Early Modern Period), exposition catalogue Herzog August Library WolfenbA?ttel (Harrassowitz 2008) as well as several articles on the cultural history of swimming. Dr Angela Schattner is Research Fellow in Early Modern History at the German Historical Institute London. She specialises in the social and cultural history of Early Modern Britain and Germany and the history of the body, disability, sports, exercise and leisure. She is the author of Zwischen Familie, Heiler und FA?rsorge. Das BewA?ltigungsverhalten von Epileptikern in deutschsprachigen Gebieten des 16.-18. Jahrunderts.