ABSTRACT
Is it because we are Puritanical at heart that we have given so little serious attention to man as a playing animal? Play does account for a wide range of human activities and yet there are still whole areas of the topic which are unexplored in any depth. Its historical study, for instance, is limited both in quantity and type. Most individual games have their ‘histories’, but these vary in their authenticity and concentrate more heavily on the twentieth century than on earlier formative periods. What is lacking is any considerable body of enquiry into the sporting activities of the past in relation to the society in which they occurred.
