![A game of Pell-Mell](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/A_game_of_Pell-Mell.jpg)
Pall-mall, paille-maille, palle-maille, pell-mell, or palle-malle (, , ) is a
lawn game
A lawn game is an outdoor game that can be played on a lawn. Many types and variations of lawn games exist, which includes games that use balls and the throwing of objects as their primary means of gameplay. Some lawn games are historical in natu ...
(though mostly played on earth surfaces rather than grass) that was mostly played in the 16th and 17th centuries, a precursor to
croquet
Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court.
Its international governing body is the Wor ...
.
History
Related to
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
(also known as lawn billiards or trucks in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
) and similar games, pall-mall is an
early modern development from , a
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
form of
ground billiards
Ground billiards is a modern term for a family of medieval European lawn games, the original names of which are mostly unknown, played with a long-handled mallet (the '), wooden balls, a hoop (the ''pass''), and an upright skittle or pin (the ' ...
.
The name comes from the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, which literally means '
ball
A ball is a round object (usually spherical, but can sometimes be ovoid) with several uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used f ...
mallet
A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head. The term is descriptive of the overall size and proport ...
', ultimately derived from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, meaning 'ball', and meaning '
maul
A maul may refer to any number of large hammers, including:
* War hammer, a medieval weapon
* Post maul, a type of sledgehammer
* Spike maul, railroad hand tool
* Splitting maul, heavy wood-splitting tool resembling both axe and hammer
People
* A ...
,
hammer
A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as w ...
, or mallet'. An alternative
etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
has been suggested, from
Middle French
Middle French (french: moyen français) is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from t ...
or 'straw-mallet', in reference to target hoops being made of bound straw.
History in Britain
It appears that pall mall was introduced from France into Scotland and later to England. The 19th-century historian
Henry B. Wheatley
Henry Benjamin Wheatley FSA (1838–30 April 1917) was a British author, editor, and indexer. His '' London Past and Present'' was described as his most important work and "the standard dictionary of London".
Life
He was a posthumous son of ...
states that "pall mall was a popular game in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and few large towns were without a mall, or prepared ground, where it could be played; but it has now been so long out of use that no satisfactory account of the game can be found."
Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scot ...
, reportedly played pall mall at
Seton Palace in
East Lothian
East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921.
In 1975, the histo ...
shortly after the murder of
David Rizzio
David Rizzio ( ; it, Davide Rizzio ; – 9 March 1566) or Riccio ( , ) was an Italian courtier, born in Pancalieri close to Turin, a descendant of an ancient and noble family still living in Piedmont, the Riccio Counts di San Paolo e Solbrito ...
in the spring of 1566.
King James VI
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...
in his 1599 ''
Basilikon Doron
The ''Basilikon Doron'' is a treatise on government written by King James VI of Scotland (who would later also become James I of England), in 1599.
Background
''Basilikon Doron'' (Βασιλικὸν Δῶρον) means "royal gift" in Ancient Gr ...
'' mentions "palle maillé" among the "faire and pleasant field-games" suitable for his son
Prince Henry Prince Henry (or Prince Harry) may refer to:
People
*Henry the Young King (1155–1183), son of Henry II of England, who was crowned king but predeceased his father
*Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394–1460)
*Henry, Duke of Cornwall (Ja ...
.
The author
Henry B. Wheatley
Henry Benjamin Wheatley FSA (1838–30 April 1917) was a British author, editor, and indexer. His '' London Past and Present'' was described as his most important work and "the standard dictionary of London".
Life
He was a posthumous son of ...
speculated that the game was introduced to England from Scotland after the
accession of James VI in 1603, quoting a statement from
Robert Dallington
Sir Robert Dallington (1561–1637) was an English courtier, travel writer and translator, and master of the London Charterhouse.
Life
Dallington was born at Geddington, Northamptonshire. He entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was ther ...
's ''Method for Travell'', that the game had not yet reached England. In the ''Method for Travell'', which Wheatley dated to 1598 but may have been as late as 1605, Dallington marvels that pall-mall was one of the few French pastimes that had not been introduced to England.
The French ambassador
Antoine Lefèvre de la Boderie Antoine Lefèvre de la Boderie (1555-1615) was a French diplomat and ambassador to England.
He was a son of Jacques Lefèvre de la Boderie and Anne de Montbray.
Career
Boderie was a master of household to Henry IV of France. In January 1598 he wel ...
said that Prince Henry (in England) in 1606 played golf, which he compared to "pallemail". One of Prince Henry's biographers, in a work published in 1634, mentioned that he played "gauffe (a play not unlike to Palemaille)". Prince Henry had a court or pitch, a "pell mell", laid out at St James' Fields, north of
St James's Palace
St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Altho ...
. It was surfaced with cockle shells crushed into clay or loam.
It is known that sometime around 1630 a Frenchman named John Bonnealle laid out a court for playing pall-mall on the south side of
St. James's Square
St James's Square is the only square in the St James's district of the City of Westminster and is a garden square. It has predominantly Georgian and Neo-Georgian architecture. For its first two hundred or so years it was one of the three or fo ...
, London, in an area known as St. James's Field (later Pall Mall Field). "A year or two" later, in about 1631, Bonnealle had died and the king's shoemaker, David Mallard or Mallock, had built a house on this land, which he was ordered to demolish by
Candlemas Day
Candlemas (also spelled Candlemass), also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Feast of the Holy Encounter, is a Christian holiday commemorating the presentati ...
(around 2 February) 1632.
Evidently, the pall-mall court was rebuilt at this site, as Archibald Lumsden received a grant on 30 September 1635 "for sole furnishing of all the 'Malls,' bowls, scoops, and other necessaries for the game of Pall Mall within his grounds in St. James's Fields, and that such as resort there shall pay him such sums of money as are according to the ancient order of the game."
Lumsden's pall-mall court also appears in the records in September 1660, when his daughter Isabella petitioned for "one of the tenements in St. James's Field, as promised to her father who spent £425 14s in keeping the sport of Pall Mall". Accounts attached to the petition appeared to indicate the money was spent on "bowls, malls and scopes, 1632 to 1635, and in repairs in Pall Mall, when the Queen went thither to lie in of the Lady Mary."
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...
's diary for 2 April 1661 records that he went "into St. James's Park, where I saw the Duke of York playing at Pelemele, the first time that I ever saw the sport".
There do not appear to be references earlier than 1630 to the game being played in England. The game is mentioned in a 1611 French–English dictionary, but this does not demonstrate that it was actually played in England at that time:
Cotgrave's description of the long alley-like playing surface with an iron hoop at either end accords well with reports of the game as played in London twenty years later. However, there's little reason to read this as an implication that the game was played in England in 1611, especially given that he is providing an English definition of a French word.
An early 19th-century writer on English games,
Joseph Strutt, quotes Cotgrave's description and the association with
Restoration
Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to:
* Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
** Audio restoration
** Film restoration
** Image restoration
** Textile restoration
* Restoration ecology
...
royalty:
The game was still known in the early nineteenth century, as is proved by its reference in many English dictionaries. In
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
's 1828 dictionary, his definition of "Pall mall" clearly describes a game with similarities to modern croquet: "A play in which the ball is struck with a mallet through an iron ring". In his unpublished memoir the writer Oswell Blakeston reports seeing it played at "the only pub that still has a green for this game" in the late 1930s.
Game play
It was played in a long
alley
An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in the older parts of towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane ...
with an iron hoop suspended over the ground at the end. The object was to strike a
boxwood
''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood.
The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South ...
ball of unknown
circumference
In geometry, the circumference (from Latin ''circumferens'', meaning "carrying around") is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. That is, the circumference would be the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to ...
(a modern
croquet
Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court.
Its international governing body is the Wor ...
ball is normally in diameter, which equates to approx , in circumference) with a heavy wooden mallet, down the alley and through the hoop with the fewest hits possible. Many references tell us that the ball was about in diameter. However, it is known that this is not correct, as a ball of that size would be far, far too heavy to lift to a high height with a small mallet. Note the ball in the engraving. It is thought that the ball was likely in the region of or slightly larger. It differed from trucco especially in its more extreme length of playing area, suggesting a closer relationship to
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
than other derivatives of
ground billiards
Ground billiards is a modern term for a family of medieval European lawn games, the original names of which are mostly unknown, played with a long-handled mallet (the '), wooden balls, a hoop (the ''pass''), and an upright skittle or pin (the ' ...
.
Pall-mall was popular in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, and spread to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and other parts of
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
in the 16th century. The name refers not only to the game, but also to the mallet used and the alley in which it was played. Many cities still have long straight roads or promenades which evolved from the alleys in which the game was played. Such in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
are
Pall Mall and
the Mall, in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
the
Palmaille
The Palmaille () is a famous avenue of Altona, Hamburg. It is considered one of northern Europe's most complete examples of a Neoclassical urban ensemble.
First developed in the 1630s as a lane for the then popular '' palle-maille'', in the cour ...
, in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
the
Rue du Mail
Rue du Mail is a French fashion house founded in 2006 by Jimmy K. W. Chan, founder and chairman of Semeiotics, Inc. with Martine Sitbon
Martine Sitbon is a French fashion designer.
Biography
After spending her childhood in Morocco and a short ...
, the Avenue du Mail in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, and in
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
the
Maliebaan
or ('pallamaglio' in Italian, Middle French for 'mallet game', or sometimes interpreted as 'straw game') is an ancient outdoor game, originally from Naples, which gave rise to numerous modern sports, such as golf, croquet, hockey and its variatio ...
. When the game fell out of fashion, some of these "pall malls" evolved into shopping areas, hence the modern name of shopping centres in North America—
shopping mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...
s
—while others evolved into grassed, shady promenades, still called malls today.
In popular culture
* Pall-mall features heavily in
Julia Quinn
Julie Pottinger (née Cotler; born 1970), better known by her pen name Julia Quinn, is a best-selling American author of historical romance fiction. Her novels have been translated into 41 languages, and have appeared on ''The New York Times'' Be ...
's
Regency romance novel ''
The Viscount Who Loved Me
''The Viscount Who Loved Me'' is a 2000 historical romance novel written by Julia Quinn, first published by Avon. It is the second novel of Quinn's Bridgerton series set in Regency England and tells the story of Anthony, Viscount Bridgerton wh ...
'' and its subsequent second epilogue.
* The second season of the Netflix series ''
Bridgerton
''Bridgerton'' is an American historical- romance streaming television series created by Chris Van Dusen for Netflix. Based on the book series by Julia Quinn, it is Shondaland's first scripted show for Netflix. It revolves around the epony ...
'', based on Quinn's novel, prominently features a game of pall-mall as an annual tradition for the siblings of the eponymous family. Because of the series' popularity, department store
John Lewis
John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...
reported a 90% spike in the sales of
croquet
Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court.
Its international governing body is the Wor ...
sets, the modern equivalent of pall-mall.
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
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*
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*, available at
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pall mall
Ground billiards
es:Mallo (juego)
fr:Jeu de mail
io:Malio
it:Pallamaglio
mk:Пал мал (игра)
nl:Malie (spel)
no:Paille-maille