ABSTRACT
The history of early modern sports has so far largely been written as macro-histories mainly based on normative sources and discourses, describing long-term developments. This chapter tests the benefits of using space as an analytical framework to explore early modern sportive practices and the social significance of sports in early modern society by comparing the constitution of different sportive spaces. The chapter focuses exclusively on spaces in which sports, here with a concentration on playful physical contests like ball games, martial arts or athletics, were practised. Church and churchyard formed die geographical core of the parish community; they were centres of parish communication but also centres of parish sociability. Local drinking establishments such as alehouses, inns and taverns were other important venues that superseded the churchground as centres for communal sociability and sports in the segregational process. In the aristocratic circles building exclusive and prestigious sports facilities formed part of their conspicuous consumption and the representation of their status identity.
