“The Madnes of Tenys” and the Commercialization of Pastimes in Early Tudor London

Abstract

Efforts to control professional theatre in London in the 1570s contained echoes of the authorities’ previous reactions to the commercialization of tennis and bowling. As early as the 1470s, the London authorities had cracked down on tennis playing in the city, and records of the sale of tennis balls by the Ironmongers’ Company show that this attempt was successful in the short term. Over the next 50 years, those records provide a surprisingly detailed account of the surging popularity of tennis in the city, punctuated by occasional attempts by the authorities to ban it. Records from crackdowns on tennis and bowling in 1516 and 1528 provide information about the people who were trying to make money off these sports.