Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book includes competitive sport along with non-competitive forms of physical exercise, education and games in a wider investigation of 'movement cultures' in early modernity. It focuses on human sports and exercise while animal sports like coursing, horse-racing or animal baiting have largely been excluded. The book highlights sports like ball games as well as physical exercise activities which have not yet received the appropriate attention in the context of early modern sports, such as, for example, swimming. It also focuses on practices of sports and exercise and their relationship to these discourses. The book looks at evidence from England, Italy, France, the Holy Roman Empire and even from beyond Europe (Japan). It investigates the early modern period not pre-eminently as a precursor of modern developments, but as an independent and at the same time formative period in the history of sports.