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Medieval Ball Playing
This intriguing image reproduced from the margin of a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript depicts monks and nuns engaged in what looks like a baseball fungo drill (fielding practice). Completed in 1344, the manuscript recounts the life and legend of Alexander the Great in French verse. The text is accompanied by miniature scenes of daily medieval life, and this early illustration of a bat-and-ball game offers a compelling glimpse of baseball's European roots. |