Ground billiards

Ground billiards is a modern term for a family of medieval European lawn games, the original names of which are mostly unknown, played with a long-handled mallet (the ), wooden balls, a hoop (the pass), and an upright skittle or pin (the king). The game, which cue-sports historians have called "the original game of billiards", developed into a variety of modern outdoor and indoor games and sports such as croquet, pool, snooker, and carom billiards. Its relationship to games played on larger fields, such as hockey, golf, and bat-and-ball games, is more speculative. As a broader classification, the term is sometimes applied to games dating back to classical antiquity that are attested via difficult-to-interpret ancient artworks and rare surviving gaming artifacts. Dating back to at least the 15th century as a tabletop game, and in recognizable form to as early as the 14th, this proto-billiards game appears to have been ancestral to croquet (19th century), trucco (17th century; also known as trucks or lawn billiards), pall-mall (16th century), jeu de mail (15th century), and indoor cue sports (15th century if not earlier – what is usually meant by billiards today). The location of origin is obscure, with various scholars tracing it to medieval France, Italy, Spain, England, Germany, or more than one of these areas. More exotic and earlier origins have also been proposed. Even in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, indoor billiards was essentially the same game, with smaller equipment and played on a bounded table, with or without pockets. Use of the king pin declined first in most areas, followed by the abandonment of the port arch, though many variants featured both as well as pockets, while the king survived and even multiplied in some cases, leading to such modern cue games as five-pins. Some later stick-and-ball games, including cricket, also evolved multiple pin targets over time. Ground and table billiards were played contemporaneously, and the outdoor version remained known until at least the beginning of the 19th century; derived lawn games like croquet continue to the present day.

À propos de ce résultat

Cette page est générée automatiquement et peut contenir des informations qui ne sont pas correctes, complètes, à jour ou pertinentes par rapport à votre recherche. Il en va de même pour toutes les autres pages de ce site. Veillez à vérifier les informations auprès des sources officielles de l'EPFL.

Concepts associés (3)

Jeu de mail

droite|220pxLe jeu de mail est un ancien jeu sportif français. Le mot mail vient du latin malleus, en français, maillet. Il est aussi appelé pail-mail ou pale-mail, de pila, boule, et mail, maillet. La plus ancienne trace écrite liée au jeu de mail est un texte en latin datant de 1416. Très pratiqué en France et en Italie dès le Moyen Âge, le jeu atteint sous le nom de Pall Mall l'Angleterre au , époque à laquelle il est à son apogée en France.

Croquet

Le croquet est un sport d'extérieur, pratiqué en principe sur gazon et occasionnellement sur terrain sableux (plage). Il peut aussi être pratiqué sur la glace. Il semble que l'origine de ce sport soit à chercher dans le jeu de mail pratiqué dans les campagnes françaises au Moyen Âge. La noblesse française l'aurait ensuite transformé en billard pour pouvoir jouer en intérieur ; on raconte ainsi que c'est Louis XIV qui, regrettant de ne pouvoir y jouer en hiver, l'aurait fait passer sur une table, donnant naissance au billard.

Ground billiards