Elizabethan Sports Sports play a pivotal part of daily life in people today. However, sports also had a large influence on the people of Elizabethan times. These Elizabethan sports entertained everybody from Queen Elizabeth I to the peasants. The three main categories of sports that they played during the Elizabethan Era were Blood Sports, Individual Sports, and Team Sports. Sports that are considered gruel and inhumane today were part of everyday life during the Elizabethan Era. Many people could be found in attendance at these violent events. These are also known as the Blood Sports. This includes the violent game of bearbaiting, in which a bear was chained to a stake in an open space and four or five large dogs (sometimes lions) were released …show more content…
Although the team sports were not as gruesome and brutal as the Blood Sports, they were still aggressive and violent. Stoolball was almost a form of cricket and baseball in which a stool was placed on the playing field and the objective of the game was to hit the seat with the ball. Bandy-ball, an ancestor of field hockey, was played in a large field with goals on both ends. The point of the game was to score a ball through the other team’s goal with hooked clubs, which were very similar to modern field hockey sticks. Hurling was similar to bandy-ball, except many of the players were on horseback. Soccer was also popular during the Elizabethan Era, but the government did not approve of it because it was the cause of many fights and deaths. Sports were an important form of entertainment for people during the Renaissance. They allowed people from all the classes of society to come together and watch a game of Stoolball or bearbaiting. The violent sports of the Elizabethan Era were authentic to how many of the modern sports are played. However, many of the world’s most popular modern sports can be traced back to Elizabethan sports, such as colf and soccer. All in all, sports were a key role in Elizabethan