A Note on the Silver Ball of Rattray

Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 128(1998), 1101-1104 Silvee notth A n reo Bal Rattraf lo y John Burnett* ABSTRACT The Silver Ball of Rattray (c 1600) was the trophy for a game which had features similar to real tennis. origins France.Its in are INTRODUCTION e SilveTh r Bal f Rattrao l Perthshirn yi distinguishes ei e oldesth f r o beint dfo Scottise gon h sporting trophies and also the earliest known piece of Perth silver. It was made by Thomas Ramsay, who is known to have been active between 1597 and 1614, and it has been recently described in these Proceedings (Rodger 1992). Folk football, in which dozens of men and boys played a game without rules across miles of country s probablwa , y playe evern i d y paris n Lowlani h d Scotland fro e Middlmth e Ages onwards particularlA . y well-known match took plac t Scona e n Pastern'o e s E'en (Shrove Tuesday). Give shore nth t distance from Rattra somScono yt — em som k e— historian 2 e2 s have assumed that the Rattray ball was a trophy for this kind of game (for example Fittis 1891, 148). Rodger, however, suggests that the Rattray game may also have been related to the great and various European tradition of the jeu de paume, and the purpose of the present note is to show that this is indeed the case. Rodger mentions a description of the Rattray game by William Herdman (1760-1838), who became minister of Rattray in 1813: this has not yet emerged, but a later one by the Perth antiquary Peter Baxter, perhaps derived from Herdman's account, will be quoted/First, however somethiny neee sa ,w o dt g abou developmene tth t of the jew de paume. JE PAUME UD E In the late Middle Ages there were two basic forms of the game, one in which the ball was struck backward forwardd san modern i s sa n lawn tenni knows this— swa Francn ni longuea l s ea paume — and the other in which the ball was struck against a wall: squash is its most common modern derivative lattee .Th r form paumeoe f d know s theu wa je Scotlann i e th n i caichs da d an 19th century as handball. Caich was devised in the cloisters of abbeys in Picardy about 1375 where it was called cache, and from there spread all over Europe (Gillmeister 1981). The first reference wore th do t caich Scotlann i d dates fro mlittla e more tha hundrena d years later, whe appeart ni s in the anonymous poem Ratis Raving (c 1480) and in the Lord Treasurer's accounts for 1496 (DOST, sv caich). However, it was probably the game which James I had been playing at the * National Museums of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF 1102 SOCIET ANTIQUARIEF YO SCOTLANDF SO , 1998 Dominican friary in Perth in the days before his assassination in 1437. He attempted to escape from his murderers by descending into a sewer: ho maie th stoo d t welt pdayej hi ii l s afore hand with stone, bicause that whan playe eh d e therth t ea paum ballie eth s tha plaie th d with rannt t thaeof a n tey fowle hole (Shirley 1837, 56). Later evidence suggests that caich was widely played in Lowland Scotland, but no descriptions of the way in which it was played survive from before the 19th century (Burnett 1999, ch 4). As we will see, this causes difficulties in clarifying the origin of the Rattray game. In the decades around 1500 the jeu de paume was evolving in France into the more sophisticated tennis, played with racket mora d esan elaborate court. Thus when Jame returnesV d from Pari Scotlano st build 'reae dan tth l tennis' cour Falklant ta d Palac 1539-4n ei 1 (Puttfarken & Crichton-Stuart introducins 1989)wa e sporh w , ne Scotlando t tg a s costlIt . y racketd san purpose-built court mean gama s aristocracytroyaltr e thaeth fo wa t d ti yan beford ,an 20t e eth h century onlo courttw y s were buil n Scotlandi t e seconth , d bein n Edinburgi g h beside Holyroodhouse. The rules of real tennis are complex and a lucid account for laymen is available (Arlott 1975, 821-6). Of particular importance in the present context is the way in which the service is performed coure Th .rectangula s ti defined ran higy db h sidesl wallal n s.o Alon fule gth l length of one of the long sides is the penthouse, a covered gallery whose sloping roof is vital to the play, for every service must strik befort ei e hittin grounde gth . THE RATTRAY GAME Rattrae Th y gam playeplos e f grounth e wa o t n do d immediately kirke nort presene th f th :h o t church, built in 1820, occupies the site. The north wall of the kirk thus denned one side of the playing area teame .Th s consiste fouf do r players: playine Th t fell geas i parte e r afte throw bals s firso th rooe ,th e a t t th t ry th wa lendta fb n bu n;o rebound from the ground, it was struck by the western combatants, not upon the church again, but easr possibles fa a ts a eastere ,th n party hittin bact g i , backwar kon againo s forwardd d dan ;an e th , objec eacf o t h side bein mako gt bale eth l comgroune r withi th res o fa et n s o tda n their enemies' country as possible, a mark being placed on the spot where it rested. Then the sides changed places, and a new 'bout' commenced by the ball being again 'given up' by the new eastern party (Baxter 1898,150). churce th f o h e roocopies us fe wa dTh fro penthouse mth rean ei l tennis:e becausth s wa t ei team on the east who served, they always did so with the roof on their left, just as the penthouse is on the server's left in tennis. Before we examine the way in which the remainder of the game was played, we need to understand another aspect of real tennis — the chase. If a player fails to strike the ball before its second bounce, he does not lose a point as he would in modern lawn tennis. Rather, he concedes chase,a defendo t s whicchase ha Th . e define s ehdistanci e h th secone y th db f eo d bounce from bace th kcourte walchasth e f o l Th . decide s ei separata n di e rest exampler rallyr o fo f , o .If s i t ,i BURNETT: SILVER BALL OF RATTRAY | 1103 three yards and the first player manages to land the ball so that its second bounce falls within three bacyarde th opponens kf s o hi wall d an , t fail returo t s , the nit chase nth offs ei . There ear thuelemento chasee tw s th secone n i sth : d occupyine bouncth d ean r defendingo f one'o g s territory. In the Rattray game the ball was struck backwards and forwards until one side was unable to return it. Where Baxter refers to one side making 'the ball come to rest on the ground' this does t meano n that players allowe owns t it ratherol o t n bu ,t o dli r tha oppositione th t , having failed to return the ball, still had to stop it: the point which they did so defined the next phase of the play. Rattrae Th y game thus involves gaining groun mannea n di r simila layino rt g chase rean si l tennis. However, this doe t measno n havthay tsourcema e t tennith comi s r fo ,eswa froma different game longuea L . paume survives toda plateau e partn yi th f so picard, hige th h ground above the River Somme to the east of Amiens, played by teams of one to six players. It is played on an open court with neither walls nor a net, merely a line across the court to define the areas possibls a striko r t bals fa e i s eeth a l m int teamso opposition'ai e defende otw th e e Th . th y db s half of the court, the distance struck being measured to the point of the second bounce of a ball beet whicno ns returnedhha wore :th d chasse uses i describo dt (Lazurt ei e 1981, 21). An almost identical feature is found in a Scots game, haun-an-hail, which the lexicographer John Jamieson recorded in Dumfriesshire in 1825: goalo Tw s calld hails, r dules, o t abou a fixede , distance ar on th t fouf eo r hundred yards from each other. The two parties then place themselves in the middle between the goals, or dules, and one of the persons, taking a soft elastic ball about the size of a man's fist, tosses it into the air, and as it falls, strike t witsi pals hhi m toward antagonistss shi gamobjeceither e e th fo Th .f s ei o r t part drivo yt e the ball beyond the goal which lies before them, while their opponents do all in their power to prevent thisbale soos gowf't,s th i l A .

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