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History of cricket to 1725
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History of cricket to 1725
The earliest definite reference to the sport of cricket is dated Monday, 17 January 1597 (Old Style), equating to 27 January 1598 in modern New Style dates. It is a deposition in the records of a legal case at Guildford, Surrey, regarding usage of a parcel of land. John Derrick, a coroner, testified that he had played cricket on the land when he was a boy in about 1550. Derrick's testimony is confirmation that the sport was being played by the middle of the 16th century, but its true origin is unknown. All that can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that its beginning was earlier than 1550, probably somewhere in south-east England within the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. There have been suggestions that it can be traced to Flemish immigrants then resident in the area. The origin of the word cricket could derive from the Flemish word krick(-e), meaning a stick. Unlike other games with batsmen, bowlers and fielders, such as stoolball and rounders, cricket can only be played on relatively short grass, especially as the ball was delivered along the ground until the 1760s. Forest clearings and land where sheep had grazed would have been suitable places to play.
The sparse information available about the early years suggests that it may have been a children's game in the 16th century but, by 1611, it had become an adult pastime. The earliest known organised match was played in about 1611, a year in which other significant references to the sport are dated. From 1611 to 1725, fewer than thirty matches are known to have been organised between recognised teams. Similarly, only a limited number of players, teams and venues of the period have been recorded. The earliest matches played by English parish teams are examples of village cricket. Although village matches are now considered minor in status, the early matches are significant in cricket's history simply because they are known. There were no newspaper reports of matches until the end of the seventeenth century and so the primary sources are court records and private diaries, hence games were rarely recorded.
During the reign of Charles I, the gentry took an increased interest as patrons and occasionally as players. A big attraction for them was the opportunity that the game offered for gambling and this escalated in the years following the Restoration when cricket in London and the south-eastern counties of England evolved into a popular social activity. The patrons staged lucrative eleven-a-side matches featuring the earliest professional players. Meanwhile, English colonists had introduced cricket to North America and the West Indies, and the sailors and traders of the East India Company had taken it to the Indian subcontinent.
In the first quarter of the 18th century, more information about cricket became available as the growing newspaper industry took an interest. The sport noticeably began to spread throughout England as the century went on. By 1725, significant patrons—such as Edwin Stead; Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond; and Sir William Gage—were forming teams of county strength in Kent and Sussex. The earliest-known great players, including William Bedle and Thomas Waymark, were active. Cricket was attracting large, vociferous crowds and the matches were social occasions at which gambling and alcoholic drinks were additional attractions.
The most widely accepted theory about the origin of cricket is that it first developed in early medieval times to the south and south-east of London in the geographical areas of the North Downs, the South Downs and the Weald. The counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey were therefore the earliest centres of excellence and it was from here that the game reached London, where its lasting popularity was ensured, and other southern counties like Berkshire, Essex, Hampshire and Middlesex. As early as 1611, a cricket match was recorded at Chevening in Kent between teams representing the Downs and the Weald.
A number of words in common use at the time are thought to be possible sources for cricket's name. In the earliest known reference to the sport in 1598 (N.S.), it is called creckett. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch krick(-e), meaning a stick; or the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff. In what may be an early reference to the sport, a 1533 poem attributed to John Skelton describes Flemish weavers as "kings of crekettes", a word of apparent Middle Dutch origin. In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755), he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick". In Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick, though this may have been the origin of croquet. The first mention of criquet in France is in a letter of grievance to King Louis XI on 11 October 1478, following a riot in Liettres. Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church, the shape of which resembled the two stump wicket used in early cricket. According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of the University of Bonn, cricket derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase").
Cricket was probably devised by children and survived for many generations as essentially a children's game. The invention of the game could have happened in Norman or Plantagenet times anytime before 1300; or even in Saxon times before 1066.
All acknowledged subject experts and authorities agree that there is no evidence of cricket having evolved from another bat-and-ball sport and, equally, no evidence that any other bat-and-ball sport evolved from cricket. The authorities include writers Harry Altham, John Arlott, Derek Birley, Arthur Haygarth, David Underdown, Roy Webber and Peter Wynne-Thomas. Their consensus view is that the only thing that can definitely be said about the origin of cricket is that its earliest record is in a late 16th-century court case in Surrey which proves it was played by children in southeast England in the middle of that century. There have been alternative theories of origin but these have been dismissed or ignored by authorities. For example, the writer Andrew Lang claimed in 1912 that cricket evolved from a bat-and-ball game which may have been played in Dál Riata as early as the 6th century and this claim has been dismissed, by Anthony Bateman among others, in terms of "Lang's idiosyncratic belief in the Celtic origin of cricket". It is true that cricket is one of many bat-and-ball sports existing worldwide which have no known origin. Others are the definitely Celtic sports of hurling and shinty. Golf and hockey are other British ball games involving a club or stick while croquet was apparently imported from France and globally there are games such as Sweden's brännboll, Italy's lippa, India's gilli-danda, Finland's pesäpallo and Samoa's kilikiti. However, it is generally believed that cricket essentially belongs to the same family of bat-and-ball games as stoolball, rounders and baseball but whether it evolved from any of these, or vice versa, cannot be determined. There is a 1523 reference to stoolball at a designated field in Oxfordshire; this may then have been a generic term for any game in which a ball is somehow hit with a bat or stick. 18th century references to stoolball in conjunction with cricket clearly indicate that it was a separate activity.
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History of cricket to 1725
The earliest definite reference to the sport of cricket is dated Monday, 17 January 1597 (Old Style), equating to 27 January 1598 in modern New Style dates. It is a deposition in the records of a legal case at Guildford, Surrey, regarding usage of a parcel of land. John Derrick, a coroner, testified that he had played cricket on the land when he was a boy in about 1550. Derrick's testimony is confirmation that the sport was being played by the middle of the 16th century, but its true origin is unknown. All that can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that its beginning was earlier than 1550, probably somewhere in south-east England within the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. There have been suggestions that it can be traced to Flemish immigrants then resident in the area. The origin of the word cricket could derive from the Flemish word krick(-e), meaning a stick. Unlike other games with batsmen, bowlers and fielders, such as stoolball and rounders, cricket can only be played on relatively short grass, especially as the ball was delivered along the ground until the 1760s. Forest clearings and land where sheep had grazed would have been suitable places to play.
The sparse information available about the early years suggests that it may have been a children's game in the 16th century but, by 1611, it had become an adult pastime. The earliest known organised match was played in about 1611, a year in which other significant references to the sport are dated. From 1611 to 1725, fewer than thirty matches are known to have been organised between recognised teams. Similarly, only a limited number of players, teams and venues of the period have been recorded. The earliest matches played by English parish teams are examples of village cricket. Although village matches are now considered minor in status, the early matches are significant in cricket's history simply because they are known. There were no newspaper reports of matches until the end of the seventeenth century and so the primary sources are court records and private diaries, hence games were rarely recorded.
During the reign of Charles I, the gentry took an increased interest as patrons and occasionally as players. A big attraction for them was the opportunity that the game offered for gambling and this escalated in the years following the Restoration when cricket in London and the south-eastern counties of England evolved into a popular social activity. The patrons staged lucrative eleven-a-side matches featuring the earliest professional players. Meanwhile, English colonists had introduced cricket to North America and the West Indies, and the sailors and traders of the East India Company had taken it to the Indian subcontinent.
In the first quarter of the 18th century, more information about cricket became available as the growing newspaper industry took an interest. The sport noticeably began to spread throughout England as the century went on. By 1725, significant patrons—such as Edwin Stead; Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond; and Sir William Gage—were forming teams of county strength in Kent and Sussex. The earliest-known great players, including William Bedle and Thomas Waymark, were active. Cricket was attracting large, vociferous crowds and the matches were social occasions at which gambling and alcoholic drinks were additional attractions.
The most widely accepted theory about the origin of cricket is that it first developed in early medieval times to the south and south-east of London in the geographical areas of the North Downs, the South Downs and the Weald. The counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey were therefore the earliest centres of excellence and it was from here that the game reached London, where its lasting popularity was ensured, and other southern counties like Berkshire, Essex, Hampshire and Middlesex. As early as 1611, a cricket match was recorded at Chevening in Kent between teams representing the Downs and the Weald.
A number of words in common use at the time are thought to be possible sources for cricket's name. In the earliest known reference to the sport in 1598 (N.S.), it is called creckett. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch krick(-e), meaning a stick; or the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff. In what may be an early reference to the sport, a 1533 poem attributed to John Skelton describes Flemish weavers as "kings of crekettes", a word of apparent Middle Dutch origin. In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755), he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick". In Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick, though this may have been the origin of croquet. The first mention of criquet in France is in a letter of grievance to King Louis XI on 11 October 1478, following a riot in Liettres. Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church, the shape of which resembled the two stump wicket used in early cricket. According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of the University of Bonn, cricket derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase").
Cricket was probably devised by children and survived for many generations as essentially a children's game. The invention of the game could have happened in Norman or Plantagenet times anytime before 1300; or even in Saxon times before 1066.
All acknowledged subject experts and authorities agree that there is no evidence of cricket having evolved from another bat-and-ball sport and, equally, no evidence that any other bat-and-ball sport evolved from cricket. The authorities include writers Harry Altham, John Arlott, Derek Birley, Arthur Haygarth, David Underdown, Roy Webber and Peter Wynne-Thomas. Their consensus view is that the only thing that can definitely be said about the origin of cricket is that its earliest record is in a late 16th-century court case in Surrey which proves it was played by children in southeast England in the middle of that century. There have been alternative theories of origin but these have been dismissed or ignored by authorities. For example, the writer Andrew Lang claimed in 1912 that cricket evolved from a bat-and-ball game which may have been played in Dál Riata as early as the 6th century and this claim has been dismissed, by Anthony Bateman among others, in terms of "Lang's idiosyncratic belief in the Celtic origin of cricket". It is true that cricket is one of many bat-and-ball sports existing worldwide which have no known origin. Others are the definitely Celtic sports of hurling and shinty. Golf and hockey are other British ball games involving a club or stick while croquet was apparently imported from France and globally there are games such as Sweden's brännboll, Italy's lippa, India's gilli-danda, Finland's pesäpallo and Samoa's kilikiti. However, it is generally believed that cricket essentially belongs to the same family of bat-and-ball games as stoolball, rounders and baseball but whether it evolved from any of these, or vice versa, cannot be determined. There is a 1523 reference to stoolball at a designated field in Oxfordshire; this may then have been a generic term for any game in which a ball is somehow hit with a bat or stick. 18th century references to stoolball in conjunction with cricket clearly indicate that it was a separate activity.
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