Recreation in the Renaissance : attitudes towards leisure and pastimes in European culture, c. 1425-1675

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. During the European Renaissance, the idea that human beings need periodical rest from their ordinary occupations became commonplace. Medical writing justified a variety of physical activities as beneficial to the preservation of health. Under the influence of Aristotle, moral literature coined the notion of the art of amusing oneself and one's interlocutors, by keeping the mean between excessive laughter and excessive seriousness. Christian writers produced their own categories, by which many pastimes could be disapproved of. Italy hosted a school of legal writing on games, mainly concerned with gambling. The legal discourse was not dominated by prohibitions - because political power could find reasons for tolerating or even promoting some forms of recreation. Social hierarchy, gender and age clearly affected the ways in which specific pastimes were practised and perceived. Thus, leisure existed and mattered well before the Industrial Revolution: its theory and practice significantly shaped an epoch and its self-image In Renaissance Europe, when 'leisure classes' used social gathering to define civility and the commercialization of leisure was beginning, the human need for recreation became a cultural topos. The book explores the vocabulary of play and games; the spectrum of leisure activities, often gender-specific or appropriate to particular social groups; the medical discourse on the preservation of health, where amusements were assessed as physical exercise; the moral approach to play; legal treatises on gambling; and the visual representation of leisure. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-9 The Need for Recreation....Pages 10-17 The Medical Discourse....Pages 18-45 The Moral Discourse....Pages 46-72 Games and Law....Pages 73-88 Varieties of Pastimes....Pages 89-115 Conclusion....Pages 116-127 Back Matter....Pages 128-188