What Did People In The Middle Ages Do For Fun ?
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Entertainment for people in the Middle Ages was wide ranging based on their status. The different kinds of entertainment included variety of sports, plays and feasts. People entertained themselves through fairs, games, tournaments, jousts, banquets, feasts, mystery plays, hunting, hawking and animal entertainment carried out using monkeys, bears and dogs.
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People in the Middle Ages were alleviated from their monotonous life by these types of entertainment. Also, people in this period celebrated festivals and holidays. People especially from the lower classes shared common lives like working in the fields, working in the gardens and in the church. These people worked hard, day and night, in heavy rains and hot summer to produce crops. The people celebrated many festivals and enjoyed a lot of holidays apart from Sundays, around eight weeks in a year were declared as holidays that were supposed to be free from work. Holidays were celebrated at some great festivals like May Day, Christmas and Easter. Also, the end of plough season, harvest season was celebrated that relieved the labors from monotonous work.
The people who had the responsibility to entertain people during the Middle Ages were jesters, mummers, troubadours, conjurers, jugglers and acrobats. The jesters were the people who made people laugh through their funny acts and were often referred as buffoon in the medieval courts. Mummers were the special costumed people known for their dances during festivals.
There were a wide variety of games played in the middle ages and very popular in all classes of the society. Several games were played in middle ages like the Dice Games, Board Games, Card Games, Children’s games and sporting games. The board games in Middle Ages include nine men’s Morris, backgammon, chess, alquerques, the philosopher’s game, fox and geese, knucklebones, hazard and shovelboard. The outdoor activities comprised of colf (similar to Golf), archery, bowls, hurling or shinty, game ball, hammer throwing, wrestling, throwing horseshoes, skittles, quarter, stoolball and the most beloved sport the knight fighting.
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