In Their Own Words

Sport, both participatory and spectator, was politically and socially important to Imperial Romans, but was slow to gain respectability in Christian Europe. Medieval and Renaissance doctors, however, prescribed exercise as good for health and the violent games of the early Middle Ages, condemned by the Church, gradually yielded in the 16th century to sports such as tennis, fencing, and pall mall (and golf) that were governed by precise rules and codes of behavior.