Early Writers on Cockfighting

Roger Ascham’s intended book on cockfighting never materialised, and it was not until the seventeenth century that several works were published on the subject. Some were dedicated to knights of the realm, either in tribute to their valour on the field of combat, or the valour of their family through several generations. This honouring of martial prowess was an acknowledgment of how the aristocracy, the military class, were seen by many at the time. Three key themes permeate each of the early works. First, there was a desire to show the antiquity of the sport to give it an uninterrupted pedigree practised by social elites. This is coupled to a desire to imbue the practice with both religious and moral overtones, and the reverence it should be accorded consequently. Although later works focussed on practical matters—the rearing, and preparation of cocks for combat and their post-combat care—none of them lost sight of these key concepts. The first to extoll the virtues of cockfighting was a breeder, George Wilson, the vicar at Wretton in Norfolk, who penned a short treatise, sometime in 1607, The Commendation of Cockes, and Cocke-fighting: Wherein it is shewed, that Cocke-fighting was before the coming of Christ. The very title tries to impress upon the reader the antiquity of the sport and he cites, among other examples, Plutarch’s Lives of the Romans relating the story of Marcus Antonius being warned to beware of Caesar, ‘because his cocks did always lose when they fought with Caesar’s’. According to Wilson, cockfighting came to Greece from Persia in the time of Themistocles in the fifth century BC and he concocts a lengthy and elaborate oration which he puts into the mouth of the Athenian general on the eve of embarking on a war against Dalmatia, a region of present day Croatia. Having set two cocks to fighting, Themistocles extolls their indomitable spirit and exhorts his warriors to follow their example of courage and stout heartedness. Wilson takes their example a step further, with him the cock is transformed into an ‘object lesson for a man’s duties and obligations’.