Philip The Bold, Duke of Burgundy – 14th Century loser?
In researching my first piece in this short series, Ancient Arithmetic: Possible Origins Of The Tennis Scoring System…
…I trawled a great many authoritative (and some nonauthoritative) sources in search of the source of the tennis scoring system. In so doing, I also learnt a great deal about the odds, or handicapping systems that tend to accompany tennis scoring.
I also learnt that the origins of tennis, its scoring and handicapping are inextricably linked to the fact that tennis was widely played and observed as a wagering game, certainly as far back as medieval times. Enjoy the following example:
During the reign of Charles V . palm play , which may properly enough be denominated hand – tennis , was exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for large sums of money ; and when they had lost all that they had about them , they would sometimes pledge a part of their wearing apparel rather than give up the pursuit of the game . The duke of Burgundy , according to an old historian , having lost sixty franks at palm play with the duke of Bourbon , Messire William de Lyon , and Messire Guy de la Trimouille , and not having money enough to pay them , gave his girdle as a pledge for the remainder ; and shortly afterwards he left the same girdle with the comte D ‘ Eu for eighty franks , which he also lost at tennis .
Extracted from: “The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England from the Earliest Period”, Joseph Strutt, 1801. The “old historian” quoted is referenced as “Laboureur , sub an . 1368 .”
I love that 14th century story about my new friend, Philip The Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Of course, the detail might be more legend than history, but it forms part of a significant body of evidence that tennis was already a structured sport way back then, with wagering being “part of the scene”.
As an aside, Philip the Bold was not only well-known to be an enthusiast of jeu de paume (tennis), he was also a great enthusiast for the Pinot Noir grape; prohibiting the cultivation of the Gamay grape in Burgundy (1395), thus initiating that region’s fine wine tradition. Philip the Bold also initiated a musical chapel which founded the great Burgundian school of music. Tennis, wine & music – Philip was my kinda guy.
Medieval Kings & Their Love/Hate Relationship With Tennis
In fact, there is documentary evidence of tennis as a royal pursuit from the early 14th century. Tennis’s first “star”, for all the wrong reasons, was Louis X of France, known as Louis The Quarrelsome.
There is documentary evidence that Philip IV, Louis’s dad, bought the Tour de Nesle in 1308 and had a covered tennis court built within. While Philip was clearly keen on the game, there is no evidence that he played. It is said that the fashion for covered courts emanated from young Louis’s love of the game. That love also, perhaps, proved to be Louis’s undoing. Just a couple of years after succeeding to the French throne, Louis X died, age 26, apparently after playing an especially rigorous game of tennis at Vincennes, in 1316. Louis X thus became the earliest named tennis player in history.
Louis X’s kid sister, Isabella, married Edward II of England. Isabella quite possibly murdered the latter; for sure she had him deposed and had her 14 year old son, Edward III, inserted on the throne of England. That allowed Isabella and her mate, Roger Mortimer, to dabble in ruling England as regents for a bit, until Edward III asserted himself, aged 18.
Anyway, my point is, Philip IV of France (Louis X’s dad), Edward III of England and Charles V of France (Edward III’s third cousin, Philip The Bold of Burgundy’s brother) all had one thing in common in the matter of tennis; they banned it by decree.
In truth, medieval kings made a bit of a habit of banning tennis (along with most sports and games other than warlike sports, such as archery) for the middling sort, while at the same time building tennis courts and letting their families and noble entourages play tennis at will.
That sort of hypocritical prohibition by decree continued well into the 15th and 16th centuries, which almost certainly helped the game become rather popular as an underground activity.
(As an aside, I have often attributed my own love of cricket to the fact that my primary school headmistress banned cricket in the school playground when I was 10, which inevitably led to clandestine games of cricket on the common whenever the opportunity arose – thank you Miss Plumridge. I don’t suppose the teachers who ruled Rosemead School were hypocritically playing cricket, while prohibiting their charges from doing so. But who knows? Anyway, I digress.)
Renaissance Tennis, Honour & Wagering
While we have strong direct evidence that noble folk wagered on their play and sometimes wagered big – Henry VIII has a great many well-documented, substantial losses from playing tennis – we also have plenty of indirect evidence that tennis was a popular game around which the players indulged in wagering and observers often indulged in gambling.
Heiner Gillmeister in his Cultural History of Tennis is unequivocal on this point:
…in the Middle Ages tennis was always played for money…
1998 English edition, p123.
However, the first book specifically about tennis, Antonio Scaino da Salò’s 1555 Trattato del Giuoco della Palla (Treatise of the Ball Game), is silent on such base matters as odds and wagering; it is more a paean to the honourable, noble game.
This seminal treatise on tennis was a youthful act of patronage by Alfonso II d’Este, who went on to become Duke of Ferrara and to patronise a great many works of art and science, not least the works of Torquato Tasso. An arty family, those d’Este folk. Alfonso II’s grandmother was Lucretia Borgia and his auntie was Leonora d’Este, who most probably composed the wonderful sacred music sampled below:
So Scaino’s commission to write his treatise on tennis came from a noble, art-loving patron; it is perhaps unsurprising that the treatise focuses on matters noble and honourable about the game, while ignoring the seedier, money-oriented side of the game.
Note how Scaino explains the reasoning behind the “win by two clear points” aspect of the scoring system:
It is to be noted that the game of tennis is of a beautiful and well-reasoned ordinance. The winning of points is called by the numbers 15, 30 and 45 and if the two teams have each won three points the score is “a dua”, meaning that the game is reduced to two points (became “à deux” or “deux à” in French, “deuce” in English) and not one! The method of fighting such a distinguished battle should be removed from any suspicion of chance or fortune. He who wins must be sure that he has won by his own valour, not by any outside favour. Who does not see now that the game could not be devised with good reason to end with only one point? The good and staunch Cavalier is judged not by one thrust of his lance; the elegant Dancer not by just one leap, however bold and skilful, but by prolongued dancing, and the sure and cautious Bombardier not by one discharge of his Artillery, but by many.
Translation by Tony Negretti, quoted from this real tennis history site
While the above reasoning does not preclude the use of odds, or handicapping, it certainly does not in any way allude to it either. But we do have plenty of evidence to support the assertion that medieval tennis was played for money and we also have documentary evidence of the use of handicapping, some 50 years before Scaino.
At Odds With Renaissance Handicapping: Meet the Bisque
The earliest reference to odds, or handicapping, that I can find, is from early 1506, reported in Julian Marshall’s 1878 book, The Annals of Tennis. It is an eye-witness account, by one of Henry VII of England’s attendants, of a “visit” to Windsor Castle by Philip The Handsome (another Duke of Burgundy, plus also King of Castille) and his Queen: Joanna The Mad of Castille.
The Sattordaye the 7 of ffebruary…
Bothe Kyngs wente to the Tennys plays and in the upper gallery theare was Layd ij Cushenes of Clothe of gold for the ij Kyngs…
…wheare played my Lord marques [of Dorset] the Lord Howard and two other knights togethers, and after the Kyngs of Casteele had scene them play a whylle , he made partys wth the Lord marques and then played the Kyngs of Casteele with the Lord Marques of Dorset the Kyngs Lookynge one them, but the Kyngs of Castelle played wth the Rackets and gave the Lord Marques xv. and after that he had pled his pleasure and arrayed himself agene it was almost nights, and so bothe Kyngs Retorned agayne to their Lodgingss.”
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in that eye-witness account. That early 16th century period was a period of transition between hand-play and racket-play at tennis. Most scholars agree that the racket came into use around 1500. So the handicap described in the account has the King of Castille playing with a racket and the Marquess of Dorset playing with his hand, while receiving fifteen (i.e. starting each game 15-0 up). Personally, I’d prefer the racket, but perhaps the Marquess was a very handy player.
Sadly, the account doesn’t tell us who won the tennis match, but the story doesn’t end brilliantly well for the visiting monarch; who in reality was more a hostage than a guest of Henry VII. Philip signed some helpful treaties and trade deals to help bring his “visit” to an amicable conclusion. Still, within a few months, Philip The Handsome died in Spain; probably poisoned/assassinated there. This made Joanna The Mad even more distraught than usual, apparently.
Thomas Grey, the Marquess of Dorset, who as a youngster had been a ward of Henry VII, was, by 1508, sent to the tower as a suspected conspirator against Henry VII. Only the accession of Henry VIII the following year saved Grey, who had a decent run as a high-ranking courtier after that narrow escape. His grand-daughter, Lady Jane Grey, was not so lucky; famously the “nine day queen”.
Not that type of bisque
In days of yore, the most common currency in tennis handicaps or odds was the bisque. A player who receives a bisque per set can claim one stroke (point) ahead of that point being played, at any stage during a set. Any number of bisques can be given, but the use of other point handicaps, such as giving fifteen every game or half-fifteen (i.e. fifteen every other game) means that the number of bisques per set would normally have been limited to one or two, perhaps occasionally three or four. Bisques would also be used sometimes to mitigate handicaps; for example Player A might receive fifteen but give a bisque or two to Player B to make the overall handicap less than fifteen.
The object of the exercise with odds (or handicapping) is to even up the game between players of differing quality. In days of yore, it almost certainly evolved as a mechanism to make wagering simpler and/or more exciting; hence the terms odds and handicapping (both gambling terms) to describe the practice.
In real tennis, handicapping is still very much part of the scene in all but the very highest level of play, as I shall explain in the third piece in this series.
As for the origins of the term “bisque”, that is lost in the mists of time. Some say the term “bisca” is Italian for tennis court and gambling house, much as the term “tripot” in French has those two meanings. But Scaino doesn’t use the term bisca or bisque at all in his treatise. The term bisque (spelt bisquaye) first appears in writing in the 1582 paper Signification de l’ancien jeu des chartes pythagorique et la déclaration de deux doubtes qui se trouvent en comptant le jeu de la paume by Jean Gosselin, but the context implies that this form of handicapping had been in regular use for some time, as Gosselin assumes that the term will be understood by the reader.
Many subsequent papers and books on tennis go into a great deal of detail about the tactical use of bisques by the player who has been given the opportunity to apply one or more of them.
Indeed, by the start of the 19th century, a fascinating array of odds/handicaps had emerged, mostly no doubt to enhance the enjoyment of wagering & gambling on the sport, but also as part of the honour system, by which the contestants were seeking to even up the match, better to enjoy the sport of the occasion. It is the latter rationale that prevails in real tennis to this day, to great effect.
But those 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st century developments will be the subject of my subsequent scribblings. As will the intriguing notion that handicaps were an intrinsic part of lawn tennis in the early days of that game.
Other Pieces On Tennis History
This piece is part two of four pieces. The other three pieces are:
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