The Armour Archive

I heard a quick blurb from a friend of mine that he had read somewhere, but can't remember where, that some nobleman hit Edward, the Black Prince, with a tennis ball and so thoroughly upset the prince that he had some of the man's lands taken away. Upon asking another friend he proposed these stories that he'd heard: One was in the intro to Walter Scott's Ivanhoe where the author, who was trying to come up with a good name or two for his book remembered a childhood rhyme about 3 manors forfeited to the Prince by Lord Hampden for having hit him with his tennis racket,
"Tring, Wing and Ivanhoe, For striking a blow, Hampden did forgo, and glad he could escape so."
Now, what I find wrong with this story is that rackets weren't used until about the 16th century if I remember and in the beginning, around the Black Princes time, tennis was a game for commoners and somewhat looked down upon by the aristocracy. So, is there any historical documentation the Hampden possibly struck the Prince during an argument and that is where this story came from?

http://www.historyoftennis.net/

Invented by monks for entertainment during religious ceremonies? I rather doubt that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis

Most historians believe that tennis originated in France in the 12th century, but the ball was then struck with the palm of the hand. It was not until the 16th century that rackets came into use, and the game began to be called "tennis." It was popular in England and France, although the game was only played indoors where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, which historians now refer to as real tennis.[3]



I have found art of a woman hitting a ball with a club that looked remarkably like a baseball bat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball

The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision. A French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball.[1] Other old French games such as théque, la balle au bâton, and la balle empoisonée also appear to be related.[2] Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (2005), by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England; recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the English games of stoolball and "tut-ball".[3] It has long been believed that cricket also descended from such games, though evidence uncovered in early 2009 suggests that the sport may have been imported to England from Flanders.[4]

Your topic title would have been more helpful if it said something about Ivanhoe and tennis.

http://slumberland.org/sca/articles/stoolball.html



I think that a baseball bat is more similar to what they used based on the other artwork I found.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/books ... MSTER.html

From a 14th-century manuscript at Oxford University. (I think this should be 13thC, not 14thC)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/ginger_s_nap/2728633601/


The image I first found is later than the 14thC one, I think, and in Italy. It might have been a fresco.

Thanks for the input, Baron.

What I'm really interested in is if any part of the story of the Black Prince getting so angry that he did or threatened to take away someone's land. Usually there is a grain of truth in all 'tales' or legends and I'm attempting to get to the bottom of it, so I'm assuming that something to do with tennis or some type of ball game was involved. I also heard there is a story floating around that Edward III and the prince went to visit Hampden and the prince and their host got into an argument and Hampden struck the prince with his hand and Edward III threatened to take lands away though no proof of it actually happening can be found. Two different stories for one event makes me think that something must have happened between the two.

Or they both heard the same story from someone, like about George Washington's wooden teeth, it just gets repeated.