Basque pelota
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Basque pelota is the name for a variety of court sports played with a ball using one's hand, a racket, a wooden bat or a basket, against a wall or, more traditionally, with two teams face to face sepa
A game of pelota as played in Ustaritz
Basque Pelota's game under the Hondarribia's City walls, by Gustave-Henri Colin in 1863.
Frontoi in Ainhoa (Labourd)
Playing paleta at the trinquet of Elizondo (Navarre)
Jeu de paume
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Jeu de paume was a ball-and-court game that originated in France and was the precursor of real tennis and ultimately of the modern game of tennis. Jeu de paume was played without racquets, and so was
Basque pelota
…safety equipment is not used properly or at all; while rare, occasional deaths do occur. The origin of this sport is tied to the decline of the ancient jeu de paume (jeu de paume au gant), ca. 1700. While the game evolved to the modern jeu de paume (with racquet, called real tennis in England) and eventually to…
Jeu de paume in the 17th century.
Late 18th-century illustration of jeu de paume paddle-bats or battoirs, and (in various stages of construction) strung racquets.
Earliest known picture of Jeu de Paume from a Book of Hours (c. 1300)
A modernised court in the Palace of Fontainebleau, Fontainebleau (1991).