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Real Tennis and the Civilising Process

This article examines the social significance of Real Tennis among the Western European nobility during its heyday of the sixteenth century. Underpinned theoretically by Norbert Elias's seminal empirical work The Civilising Process, this article seeks to identify the societal preconditions for the emergence of Real Tennis, and provide explanations for its diffusion across Western Europe and subsequent boom in popularity among the nobility. A critique is offered of the current body of literature written on Real Tennis, with an aim to address a general lack of focus on the game's ‘social’ elements and how their development is linked with structural changes to the game over the centuries. The article then goes on to examine the ways in which Real Tennis became a symbol of prestige and a tool for social mobility among the increasingly status-competitive royal court nobility. Played during royal festivals, the game provided opportunities for nobles to engage in conspicuous consumption through architectural, clothing and gambling displays; having an entourage in accompaniment to the noble players; and, through the style of play and behavioural control, exhibiting self-restraint and foresight. Overall, an attempt is made to apply Elias's theoretical framework to aid our understanding of the development of Real Tennis, a game that has never been characterised by overt ‘violence’ of the kind examined previously by other sociologists employing an Eliasian framework.