Winter Olympics

It's almost time for the Winter Olympics!  Was there something comparable in the Middle Ages?  Emphatically NO.  As I discussed earlier, the original Greek Olympian games (that don't bear much of any relationship to the modern Olympics, other than the name) were ended at the end of the fourth century AD as too pagan.  After all, they had begun as a way to honor Zeus and the rest of the Olympian gods.

But the Middle Ages had some of the same sports that appear in the Winter Olympics, though maybe not as sports.  Well, at least they had cross-country skiing.

Skiing was a way to get across country with a lot of snow, and was fully developed as a mode of transportation in late medieval Scandinavia.  It was in fact quicker and easier getting between some places in the winter than it was in the summer, when it might be muddy.  Because of the glide, one can go faster on skis than on foot over long distances.

Medieval skis were basically long thin boards.  No fiberglass skis, no special waxes, no big discussions about how long the ski should be compared to your height and snow conditions.  But they got the job done.

The modern Olympics still calls cross-country skiing a Nordic event.  But how about down-hill?

Curiously enough, down-hill skiing is quite recent.  It really only developed in the nineteenth century, in Switzerland (why it is called an Alpine event).  People had been doing cross-country skiing through the valleys but weren't crazy enough to try to zip down mountains to their certain death.  But as people developed ski technology (things like sharp metal edges) and ways to turn the skis, they realized one could descend mountains in a zigzag and not die.  But the big push for down-hill skiing was tourism, as Switzerland sought to break free of its reputation as a backwards, rather dirty place, full of cows and cow dung, and be seen instead as a haven for wholesome manly activity in the outdoors.

But I never thought of Switzerland as backwards and full of cow dung! you say.  Yes, that's because their efforts succeeded wildly well.  And in fact Switzerland is a remarkably clean and tidy country now, and determined to stay that way.  Reread Heidi.  (Did you read it when little?  I must have read it four times in second grade alone.)  It's about how the Swiss are healthy and wholesome, unlike the nasty city life of Vienna.

Skating and bobsledding are also based on activities that went back to the Middle Ages.  Without down-hill skis, people in mountainous regions got down the hill on a sled, doing their best to steer.  (Their sleds did not look much like modern sleds.)  Skating originally involved strapping wooden sliders on your feet, to glide over the ice.

Areas with a lot of ice (like Dutch canals) could use the ice as a road in the winter, though their skates were generally not metal.  Again, it was faster than walking, even so.  Young men could compete informally in skating races, just as they would in foot races in the summer.  (But no Hans Brinker competing for silver skates then.  That's nineteenth-century.)

There was no figure skating.  The skates weren't up to it.  (And if anyone is fooled by the lovely costumes to think figure skating is easy, tell me, how's your quadruple lutz these days?)

© C. Dale Brittain 2018 

For more on medieval sports and entertainment, see my ebook, Positively Medieval:  Life and Society in the Middle Ages, available on Amazon and other ebook sites.