Although there is evidence that ball games, in various manifestations, have existed throughout human history, ball play was a favorite sport of the lower classes in Europe throughout the middle ages. Sports reflected the divided society. In contrast to the widespread participation, and standards, of aristocratic sport, non-aristocratic sport was parochial, seasonal and of local interest only. For the most part, leisure activities of the peasants were either ignored or encouraged as a safety valve against social unrest. Initially encouraged by church authorities and the aristocracy, they became such a part of the fabric of peasant life that they were documented only when authorities attempted regulation. This evolution of the use of sport, from social control to social protest, accompanied the decline of feudalism even as it continued to take place in a primarily agrarian society.

The focus of Christian zealots on the soul, to the exclusion of the body, gave rise to the 'great Protestant legend' that most early churchmen were opposed to sport. However, Christian Europe's acceptance of the 'pagan' customs reflected the attitudes of several early church spokesmen. Both Augustine and Pope Gregory encouraged Christians to adopt the 'good' customs. Thus ball games which originated as Egyptian fertility rites, and had been incorporated by the Islamic Moors, were baptized in the service of Christianity in medieval Europe and became an integral part of Easter ceremonies, particularly in France. Not only did the church adapt and popularize ball games, it also provided time (Sunday afternoon) and place (the churchyard), for this 're-creation of strength.' As well, the church calendar aligned holidays with seasonal patterns and granted festive occasions at Easter, during harvest season, at Christmas, and days specific to various countries, such as numerous saints days in Italy, and Shrove Tuesday and May Day in England. For expansive games, church land, usually rented to wealthy landowners, was turned over to peasant sport before and after harvest. Gradually the ball games moved from church ritual to mainstream. The French game of la soule was well established by the twelfth century and an 1175 account by William Fitzstephen of footeballe in London indicates the game's popularity in England. Despite the regional differences, they were generally aggressive and violent, and often played between the men of two adjacent villages. Team size could number between a dozen or hundreds, and the playing field was occasionally the country-side separating two parishes. Kicking and biting, the players often used the game as opportunity to settle old scores and, in Ashbourne, England, in 1280 and 1321, records indicate that ball games resulted in accidental deaths from sheathed knives.

It was this 'vigor' with which the game was played that became the rationale for circumscribing ball play. The first opposition, though ambivalent, was recorded by the church. Parish priests often identified with the masses and joined them in their pursuits and, as early as 470, the French bishop of Clermont organized a ball game that was "as true a friend to [him] as [his] books ... [and helped rid him] of that sluggishness which inevitably results from ... sedentary occupation." However, in 1287, displeased that its churchyard was being desecrated by footballers, the Synod of Exeter attempted to regulate such activities, while in 1303 a churchman in Lincolnshire denounced the playing of football on church property. In 1364, the Synod of Ely issued a decree forbidding its clergy from playing football and, in 1440, a French bishop proscribed the play of that "dangerous and pernicious game." The voice of secular authority joined that of the ecclesiastical in its response to the ball games. In 1314, the mayor of London issued a proclamation which reminded the citizens to keep the peace in the absence of King Edward II:

"And whereas there is great uproar in the City through certain tumults arising from great footballs in the fields of the public, from which many evils perchance may arise ..., we do commend and do forbid, on the King's behalf, upon pain of imprisonment, that such games shall be practiced henceforth within the City."

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 In France, King Charles VI in 1369, attempted to suppress la soule not only because of its physical dangers but because it led to mob scenes.

However, beyond the attempt to control the masses, with the inception of the Hundred Years' War between France and England in 1338, ball play became viewed as a distraction from the population's obligation for military preparedness. France's Charles V felt that his countrymen were playing at "all the games that [did] nothing to teach the manly art of bearing arms", and England's Edward III complained that the "skill of shooting with arrows [was] almost totally laid aside for the purpose of [football]." Thus, in England, edicts were issued ordering the practice of archery on Sundays and other holidays, and forbidding "under pain of imprisonment [the meddling] in the hurling of stones, ... footballs, ... or other vain games." From 1365 to 1415, no less than five similar decrees were proclaimed. That they failed to quell the game, reveals how firmly football was entrenched in the popular culture and the transition of its use from social control by authority to resistance of that authority.

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That football continued to thrive for the lower classes is evidenced by an early sixteenth century poet who wrote,

The sturdy plowmen, lusty, strong and bold
Overcometh the winter with driving the football,
Forgetting labor and many a grievous fall.

Further evidence of its popularity is in the continuing documented opposition. In 1531, humanist author Sir Thomas Elyot denounced football as a game of "beastly fury and extreme violence" while a grand jury in Elizabethan Middlesex County formally indicted the leaders of a large group of "malefactors" who "assembled themselves unlawfully and played a certain unlawful game called football." In the mid-seventeenth century, despite abolishment by the ruling Puritans of Sunday amusements, the sport could not be quelled. In what appears to be defiance to the new laws, in Essex, "when the Book of Common Prayer was read the people did usually go out of church to play football, ... and it was no matter if they were hanged." Rural laborers continued to live their lives in terms of seasonal cycles and neither monarchs, church officials, nor rural magistrates could compel the English common folk to relinquish their games. Only with the urbanization of rural workers in the eighteenth century, created by the enclosure movement and the opportunity for factory work, were football games suppressed. With large, open spaces no longer available for games, games played in towns or cities were a greater threat to property and civil order, and urban authorities took the opportunity to regain control the sport.

The records of seventeenth and eighteenth century explorers, indicate similar enthusiasm in ball play among many North American peoples. North-West Company fur-trader, Peter Grant wrote of the high spirits with which the Ojibwa played lacrosse, and, in 1643, Roger Williams noted, the Algonquins "have great meetings of football playing ... at which they have great stakings [i.e.,bets], but seldom quarrel." It was evidently "bad form" to show anger or desire for revenge as a result of injuries that often occurred. In fact, William Baker contends that, with rules imposed, the football played among the Massachuset, Micmac, Narraganset, and Powhatan tribes were far more 'civilized' than the peasant game of rural England.

Played ostensibly for pleasure, the ball games of both civilizations were 'tension reducers' and a form of combat. The rules which accompanied the games of the North Americans maintained a level of societal control while encouraging survival skills (in the Marxist view), both physical and social. The European ball games sprang from the need of the church and feudal aristocracy to prevent social unrest. However, the sport evolved, according to the Neo-Gramscian theory, to an opportunity for resistance by the subordinated lower classes. Its popularity, its reputation for violence and destruction, and the ineffectualness of both religious censure and legislation are clear indication of sport used for protest.