The Purpose of Sport

one of the tasks of this chapter is to familiarize the reader with the historical vocabulary of sport, on the premise that the lexicon of any field of human pursuit will illuminate the purpose and relative status of that pursuit. What words—verbs referring to activities, nouns labeling objects, places and times, forms of practice—were in use in the languages spoken and written in the West, between 1450 and 1650, when mentioning in passing, or discussing in detail, single activities we cluster as sport? More significantly still, what collective terms were used to define an entire group of forms of such human behavior; what activities were included, what others excluded from them? did the adoption of similar categories have judgmental or other implications? did it undergo significant variation throughout the period? further, as the title of the chapter plainly suggests, it will be appropriate to examine what meanings and purposes different social groups could give to a type of sporting activity; at the same time, even one and the same individual or group may have undertaken a certain course of action for more than one reason.