by Joshua R. Colson and Brandon K. Presley
In the first article of this series, we explored the relationship between organized sport and the early church.[1] Throughout the first three centuries of the Church’s existence, Christians dealt with sports in the context of the Roman Empire. For Romans, sporting events were inextricably bound up with religious cultus, or worship. Many Roman sports could be characterized as violent and deadly. Early Christians, believing that the idolatry and violence of the Roman games made them an affront to Biblical morality, generally distanced themselves from them.
The fourth century, however, witnessed a seismic shift in Christianity’s relationship with the Roman Empire, transforming even Christians’ relationships with sports. As we shall see, the rise of Constantine spelled the end of Roman sport as it had existed for centuries. From 313 onward, Romans gradually decoupled sport from pagan religion and dropped some of its most violent aspects. These changes opened the way for a new relationship between Christians and sport to be chartered—a relationship that continued developing even after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and has continued to develop to the present day. For this article, we will focus on the relationship between Christianity and sports from the time of Constantine up until the eve of the Protestant Reformation.
Constantine and a Changing Landscape
During the reign of Constantine, Christianity went from being a marginalized and persecuted religious sect to the preferred religion of the Empire. In the famous Edict of Milan (313), Constantine declared that anyone “who wishes to observe the Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without any disturbance or molestation” and granted Christians within the Empire “unrestricted opportunity of religious worship.”[2] As a result of Christians’ newfound liberty and Constantine’s increasing sympathy for Christianity, Roman culture at large and sporting culture in particular began to shift away from paganism toward Christianity.
The most obvious change occurred when Constantine placed a ban on gladiatorial games as a form of capital punishment. In 325, the emperor decreed, “Bloody spectacles are not suitable for civil ease and domestic quiet. Wherefore since we have proscribed gladiators, those who have been accustomed to be sentenced to such work as punishment for their crimes, you should cause to serve in the mines, so that they may be punished without shedding their blood.”[3] By the end of the fourth century, Emperor Honorius “closed the remaining gladiatorial schools at Rome . . . and formally banned gladiatorial combats in 404.”[4] Donald G. Kyle incisively attributes the demise of the gladiatorial system largely to “Christian condemnation.”[5]
The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 also brought profound changes to the world of sport. While sports like chariot-racing would continue into the Byzantine Empire for several centuries longer, the organized sporting culture that had been a part of Roman life for centuries more-or-less dissipated in the Western areas of the old Empire.[6] In time, however, those formerly Roman lands in the West developed sports and games of their own.
Generally speaking, in the medieval era, sporting engagement varied greatly based on one’s social class. For the peasant classes—the vast majority of people in medieval Europe—organized sport was largely nonexistent. However, it would be a mistake to assume that peasants did not engage in any form of sporting activity. On the contrary, Guttman explains, “We know that some peasants ran and jumped and threw and wrestled and that others watched and cheered them” and goes on to explain how “soccer, rugby, and American football” developed from “the medieval ballgame” of the peasant classes.[7] Poor medieval Europeans especially engaged in these sorts of activities on “feast days [which] were so numerous that they typically accounted for around one third of the calendar year.”[8]
That said, the majority of organized, tournament sporting events occurred within the upper class of knights and warriors. Thomas S. Henricks observes that the “lives” of the “feudal elite . . . were ruled by three passions—war, hunting, and the tournament—and the last two were preparation for the first.”[9] Unsurprisingly, then, medieval sport was practically indistinguishable from war itself, often turning violent and downright deadly. “For the medieval knight,” writes Gutmann, “the line between tournament and battlefield, between mock and real warfare, was thin and often transgressed. ‘Games resembled war and war resembled games.’”[10]
The jousting tournament was the medieval sport that most closely mimicked aspects of warfare.[11] Initially, these contests were not meant for spectators. They were largely unregulated and took place with large groups of knights in open meadows or fields. By the twelfth century, these tournaments had become quite common and also quite deadly. As an example, in 1240, sixty jousters were killed in a single tournament in Neuss, Germany. Over time, however, jousting became a more organized and less bloody affair, leading to its rise as a spectator sport among the masses.[12]
Contrast and Continuity with the Early Church
Unfortunately, the great Western churchmen of the medieval church did not provide a sustained theological treatment of sports. So, it is difficult for us to know how the church responded to these changes in sport. However, the references to sports that we do find in this era reveal a common thread connecting medieval Christians to their counterparts in the early church: namely, a high value on human life.
Christian polemics against participation in the ancient Roman games were grounded largely in theological arguments about the value of human life.[13] Those early believers found the Roman disregard for human life contrary to God’s will, and their beliefs ultimately led to the demise of such violent events in the late Roman Empire. In similar fashion, the faithful strongly objected to the violence and disregard for human life inherent in medieval war games like jousting. For instance, the Second Lateran Council (1139) condemned in no uncertain terms jousting that might lead to death:
We entirely forbid, moreover, those abominable jousts and tournaments in which knights come together by agreement and rashly engage in showing off their physical prowess and daring, and which often result in human deaths and danger to souls. If any of them dies on these occasions, although penance and viaticum are not to be denied him when he requests them, he is to be deprived of a church burial.[14]
The Second Lateran Council thus objected to jousting not because sport itself is sinful but because this particular form of jousting was barbaric. It commonly claimed the lives of participants just as some types of Roman games did.
Freed from the intrinsically religious nature of sport in the Roman world, however, the medieval church also moved beyond denunciation of sport in general. Among medieval churchmen, we find more than condemnations of athletic endeavors that endanger human life. We find also the commendation of nonviolent sport as a moral good, something that promotes human life and flourishing by refreshing the mind and body.
Patrick Kelly points to Hugh of St. Victor and Thomas Aquinas in demonstration of the positive view of sport that took shape in the medieval era. In The Didascalion—a book developed for students at the school of Saint Victor—Hugh argued that “recreation and sport have a legitimate place in society” and insisted that they were worth studying for the good of humanity.[15] Thomas, too, legitimized sport. Building on the work of Augustine, he argued that athletic activities provide much needed relaxation for both the mind and body.[16] Beyond viewing sports as a practical means to an end (i.e., rest for the purpose of working again), Thomas also argued that sports could be enjoyed as ends in themselves (i.e., as a gift of God).[17]
Conclusion
Up to this point in our journey, we have discerned that the through-line connecting the early church to the medieval church is the high premium that each placed on human life as the gift of God. Both strenuously objected to sport when it endangered human life. Yet we have begun to see that post-Constantinian Christians also began to think constructively about ways that Christians might engage with sports, knowing, as the Apostle Paul said, that physical activity is worth something (1 Timothy 4:8). We will continue to explore the developing relationship between Christians and sports in our next article as we turn our gaze to the Reformation and beyond.
About the Author(s):
Joshua R. Colson is a native of Southern Illinois where he currently resides with his wife, Hannah. Joshua serves as the pastor of Angelville Community Church, and as an adjunct instructor at Welch College. He holds two degrees from Welch College (B.S., Biblical Studies and General Christian Ministry; M.A., Theology and Ministry) and one from Vanderbilt University (M.T.S.). His academic interests include systematic theology, church history, and politics. In his spare time, Joshua can be found on a golf course, in a tree stand, or taking in a St. Louis Cardinals ballgame.
Brandon K. Presley and his wife, Dakota, serve as the resident directors for the men’s dorm at Welch College. They are members at Good Springs Free Will Baptist Church in Pleasant View, TN. He holds an M.A. in Theology and Ministry from Welch College and an M.A. in History from Arizona State University. He and his wife are the proud parents to their one-year-old daughter, Mary Kathryn. Brandon enjoys teaching history, reading literature, and engaging with American politics.
[1]Sport can be unorganized or organized. Unorganized sport can be anything from seeing how many stones one can skip on a body of water to a foot race. For the purposes of this article, the focus will be on organized sport, that is, sports that are structured by an overseeing authority and are formally arranged. Thus, any reference to “sport” or “sports” is in reference to organized sports.
[2]Edict of Milan: Freedom of Worship Granted to all Christians (AD 313), in Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1898), 29–30.
[3]“Medieval Sourcebook: The Codex Theodosianus: On Religion, 4th Century CE,” Fordham, revised November 15, 2024, accessed November 27, 2024, https://origin.web.fordham.edu/Halsall/source/codex-theod1.asp#:~:text=XV.,punished%20without%20shedding%20their%20blood.
[4]Donald G. Kyle, Sport and Spectacles in the Ancient World (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2025), 336.
[5]Kyle, Sport and Spectacles, 336.
[6] David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele, “What Medieval Olympics Looked Like,” Smithsonian Magazine, July 21, 2021, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-medieval-olympics-looked-180978232/#:~:text=In%20the%20Byzantine%20Empire%2C%20events,competing%20against%20one%20another%20regularly.
[7] Allen Guttman, “Sports Spectators from Antiquity to the Renaissance,” Journal of Sport History 8, no. 2 (1981), 2, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43609053.
[8]Patrick Kelly, S.J., “Catholics and Sport: An Historical and Theological Overview and Contemporary Implications,” Vatican, accessed November 27, 2024, http://www.laici.va/content/dam/laici/documenti/sport/eng/for%20further%20study/Patrick%20Kelly,%20SJ%20%20Catholics%20and%20Sports,%20An%20Historical%20and%20Theological%20Overview.pdf.
[9]Thomas S. Henricks, “Sport and Social Hierarchy in Medieval England,” Journal of Sport History 9, no. 2 (1982): 27, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43609079.
[10]Guttman, “Sports Spectators from Antiquity to the Renaissance,” 13.
[11]The history of jousting is not entirely clear. The earliest form of jousting may have occurred in the ninth century within the Germanic kingdoms. See John Marshall Carter, “Sport, War, and the Three Orders of Feudal Society: 700–1300,” Military Affairs 49, no. 3 (1985): 135.
[12]Guttman, “Sports Spectators from Antiquity to the Renaissance,” 14. While jousting is the sport most associated with medieval tournaments, war games included a wide array of sports, including falconry (hawking) and hunting, among others. See Carter, “Sport, War, and the Three Orders of Feudal Society,” 135.
[13]Joshua R. Colson and Brandon K. Presley, “Christianity at the Games,” Helwys Society Forum, June 19, 2024, https://www.helwyssocietyforum.com/christianity-at-the-games/.
[14]Second Lateran Council – 1139 A.D., Papal Encyclicals Online, accessed November 27, 2024, https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum10.htm.
[15]Kelly, “Catholics and Sport,” 8. Hugh places sport into the broad category of “Mechanical Arts.” He divides this type of art into seven categories with sport falling broadly into the “hunting” and “theatrics” categories; Hugh of Saint Victor, The Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts” (1176–1177), trans. Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 78–79.
[16]It is correct to connect Augustine with the early Church, but Augustine occupied a unique space in a period of time post-Constantine. As a result, Augustine saw sport separated from the brutality of the earlier Roman games.
[17]Kelly, “Catholics and Sport,” 8–10.
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