Games in seventeenth century Spain: An analysis of Rodrigo Caro’s 1626 work Días geniales o lúdicros [Festive Days]
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Date
2015
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Lavega i Burgués, Pere
Navarro Adelantado, Vicente
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The paper analyses 65 physical games that feature in Rodrigo Caro’s 1626 work Días geniales o lúdicros [Festive Days] and which are representative of seventeenth century Spanish society. The structural-systemic approach used is based on motor praxiology. Under a criterion of motor interaction the internal logic of the games described by Caro is studied by means of the motor communication network, the focus being on the relationship with other participants. Age and gender are also studied as aspects of the contextual or external logic. The information was obtained by means of content analysis, revealing that this corpus of games presents systemic regularities that enable us to understand better the society in which they were played. Most of the games were governed by rules, and there was also a predominance of exclusive and stable motor communication networks. In addition, socio-motor games were more common than psychomotor ones. Opposition games were widely played by children and youth, whereas adults tended to play team games. These findings suggest a culture of play characterized by interaction with others through physical games. Caro’s work reveals a set of games that are distributed across age groups, and where the majority are played by males.
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Revista International de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Fisica y del Deporte, 2015, vol. 15, núm. 59, p. 489-505