Cockfighting: ‘A Sport Peculiar to the English’

In a study of play and war, Johan Huizinga, the Dutch medieval historian and philosopher, argues that too much emphasis is placed on political and material interests when examining reasons why men go to war. He argues that more prominence should be placed on what drove the medieval aristocracy to war. The reasons were, ‘pride, vainglory, the desire for prestige and all the pomps of superiority’, according to him. When not fighting in wars, which were in any event infrequent, the military class prepared by engaging in single combat between equals in highly ritualised ceremonial tournaments. Such chivalrous encounters can be traced back to similar encounters in the name of a holy war or a war of honour in the ancient world and are mirrored in the elaborate challenges made—but rarely consummated—by medieval kings of Europe, one to another, when they tried to settle a dispute with the minimum of bloodshed. These single combats, with their ritualised solemnities, were glorified by poets and chroniclers and were the precursor of private duels fought between individuals for centuries to come. It is a small step to see the same concept of single combat between equals being reflected in the attitude held by many towards cockfighting where the game cocks, like the champions of the medieval jousts, were the proxies for their superiors seeking conquest and subjection and symbolically upholding the principles of chivalric conduct. Cockfighting was to be maintained as the preserve of the aristocratic elites.