The search after traces of boxing among the barbarism of the Middle Ages, with their iron cruelty and deadly warfare—not unredeemed, however, by rude codes of honour, knightly courtesy, and chivalrous gallantry, in defence of the weak and in honour of the fair—would not be worth the while. The higher orders jousted and tilted with lance, mace, and sword, the lower fought with sand-bags and the quarter-staff.
Wrestling, as an art, seems to have only survived among Gothic or Scandinavian peoples. A “punch on the head,” advocated by Mr. Grantley Berkeley as a poacher’s punishment, is, however, spoken of by Ariosto as the result of his romantic hero’s wrath, who gives the offender “un gran punzone sulla testa,” by way of caution. That there were “men before their time,” who saw the best remedy for the fatal abuse of deadly weapons in popular brawls, we have the testimony of no less an authority than St. Bernard. That holy and peace-loving father of the Church, as we are told by Forsyth, and numerous other writers, established boxing as a safety-valve for the pugnacious propensities of the people. He tells us: “The strongest bond of union among the Italians is only a coincidence of hatred. Never were the Tuscans so unanimous as in hating the other States of Italy. The Senesi agreed best in hating all the other Tuscans; the citizens of Siena in hating the rest of the Senesi; and in the city itself the same amiable passion was subdivided among the different wards.
“This last ramification of hatred had formerly exposed the town to very fatal conflicts, till at length, in the year 1200, St. Bernardine instituted BOXING as a more innocent vent to their hot blood, and laid the bruisers under certain laws, which are sacredly observed to this day. As they improved in prowess and skill, the pugilists came forward on every point of national honour: they were sung by poets and recorded in inscriptions. The elegant Savini ranks boxing among the holiday pleasures of Siena.”[5]
These desultory jottings must suffice to bring the history of boxing among the ancients down to the period of its gradual extinction as an art and its public and authorised practice. A few sentences from the pen of the late V. G. Dowling, Esq.[6] will appropriately close this introductory chapter.