The knightly tournament was the medieval spectator sport, an individual sport at that. The other medieval individual sports were wrestling, mentioned in one of the Chester Cycle Plays, as well as golf and some form of football, both of which, according to the OED, appear in Acts of Scotland 1457, during the reign of James ll. Golf as a game is mentioned in 1491 during the reign of James IV, and in 1538, during the reign of the fifth James. The OED carries an entry for the golf ball in 1545, and of the golf club in 1508. The figure of a man with a stick and a ball in the windows of Gloucester Cathedral is often considered a golfer. Clearly, golf is a game with a medieval heritage.
This paper contends that the ethos of the players and of the game itself, the rules, the clubs, the venues and the ins and outs of the game can be favorably compared with the knightly tournament. That the various golf tournaments are broadcast weekly, Thursday through Sunday, from early Spring through October offers an opportunity to bring medievalism actively and enjoyably into the classroom.
About the presenterMartha Oberle
Having spent some four decades teaching English Composition and Literature, I am now retired. I have publications in Year’s Work in Medievalism and in Discoveries, the online journal of the South Central Renaissance Conference, as well as 2015 article in Beyond Words, Crossing Borders in English Studies, published in Krakow. Areas of interest include Medieval Drama, Piers Plowman, Shakespeare, and American Literature. My degrees are in History and in English.