Talk:History of English cricket to 1696
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[edit] French Connection
the section regarding france takes an editorial line against a french connection to the game, despite noting that some historians believe it. this violates wikipedia:neutral point of view. Morwen - Talk 19:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- The wording I used originally was ambiguous so I've amended it to try and make clear that the English took cricket to France and it did not come the other way. Well spotted. --BlackJack | talk page 11:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] A slight chronological conundrum: This cannot be correct
- 1300
- Thurs 10 March (Julian). Wardrobe accounts of Edward I include a reference to a game called creag being played at the town of Newenden in Kent by the Prince of Wales, then aged 15 or 16.
Simply in an effort to discover whether Edward I's son, the future Edward II, was actually 15 or 16 on the date specified, I did a little research, and uncovered some rather disquieting details that call this whole reference into question. Edward II was born on 25 April 1284 and was therefore, of course, still only 15 on 10 March 1300. Unfortunately, however, he was not yet the Prince of Wales either, and did not become so until 7 February 1301. Indeed, since he was the very first English Prince of Wales, the title itself didn't even exist in March 1300, so no one would have called it him even by anticipation.
The date, of course, is Julian - as the extract itself points out - and in fact could hardly be anything else as the Gregorian calendar wasn't invented until 1582. But I wondered if the year was also given in the old-style format, with new year's day falling on 25 March. Historians always convert this to a 1 January-style year, even for the Julian period, but if this had not been done it could indeed be the case that what a contemporary might have called 10 March 1300 would actually be what we today would call 10 March 1301. Not only was the future Edward II Prince of Wales by this time, he was also 16 - which would neatly explain the unnecessary ambiguity in his age, which is given as "15 or 16".
The calendar converter at Fourmilab provided the key [1]. The weekday is specified as Thursday, and it is a simple matter to determine that 10 March was a Thursday in 1300, and not 1301. My elegant theory, therefore, falls down. The year in question is undoubtedly 1300, and the boy in question was definitely not yet Prince of Wales. TharkunColl 14:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
- An excellent piece of research! I've changed the wording to "...by Prince Edward (the future Prince of Wales), then aged 15". --BlackJack | talk page 11:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Overview Needed?
The detailed chronology makes it a little hard to see what the overall trends were over this long period. It might be useful to have a longer overview at the start, before going into the detailed chronology. This could mention how the game appeared to develop from what was probably originally a children's pastime into one played by working men, and how it subsequently attracted the attention of the gentry, as patrons and occasionally as players, largely because of the opportunities it offered for gambling. All the time the game appears to have been growing in popularity, though still seemingly almost entirely confined to south-east England. As an aside, it's interesting how many of the earliest references are to the Guildford region: Guildford itself, very famously; Wanborough, West Horsley and Shere. It makes me wonder whether the conventional wisdom that the game originated in the Weald could be wrong. Living in Cranleigh myself, not far from Guildford, I could be a little biased though. :) JH 21:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
- I've now added something along these lines. Please feel free to correct any errors. JH 09:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
