I am delighted to present for your amusement some engravings by George Glover from William Stokes’s book ‘The vaulting master or the art of vaulting’ in the hope that they will amaze and entertain you as much as they have me. One might be excused for thinking this an instruction manual on how to achieve the kind of death-defying acrobatics on horseback that one associates with the circus. A themed circus, for the man modelling the moves is dressed as a cavalier, all long curls and handlebar moustache, tightly cut breeches and buckled shoes.
But the small volume was not meant for fairground tumblers or tightrope walkers. Published in 1641, it was aimed at the educated gentleman of the 17th century, a time when vaulting expertise (the ability to leap on and off a horse with ease and without help) was considered an essential part of his required repertoire. And Oxford was the place where you went to learn.
William Stokes ran a vaulting school called The Bocardo, from the second floor of a house on Cornmarket opposite the Church of St Michael at the Northgate, (dancing and fencing, also essential skills for a man of means, were taught alongside on the same premises by his friend John Bosseley up until 1661) and there is no doubt his treatise helped give the place some healthy publicity, as well as a national reputation. Counting among his pupils the Prince of Wales (later Charles II) his master of the horse, Henry Percy, and the diarist John Evelyn, (Samuel Pepys had a copy of Stokes’s book in his library) he was adamant in his belief that vaulting embodied the kind of physical prowess and masculinity associated with the heroes from our classical past. Vaulting was not as some believed, as he put it, a ‘dangerous exercise, a device to break one’s neck, or limbs,’ but one that taught strength, athleticism and agility. ‘Vaulters’, claimed Stokes, avoided the decadence that ‘has shrunk men’s sinews, and enfeebled them,’ and became with practice ‘equal to the most active of the beasts.’
Claiming to have personally engaged in the sport daily for 30 years, Stokes gives step by step instructions on how to perform The Hercules Leap (requiring great strength), The John O-Neale (a spring over the buttocks of the horse), The Pegasus (flinging your body over the horse’s head), and other ‘passes’ as they are called in the trade. Practising at first on a wooden horse, the idea was to progress to the real thing. For the ability to jump from one mount to another was considered a valuable skill should your horse be killed on the battlefield, or you wanted to unhorse an enemy rider.
But I am glad to see they were also designed to excite ‘the admiration of the beholders.’ And this they most surely must have done. One picture shows how to jump three horses at the same time, another how to leap beside a woman ‘without molesting her’. Not to mention the leg swings, jumps and handstands inherited by Simone Biles and other modern gymnasts.
I very much hope they make you smile. However, I suspect to catch the kind of display you see on these pages nowadays, you will need to buy a ticket to the circus.
Copies of The Vaulting Master have been digitised by Internet Archive, and it is these pictures which are reproduced here.
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This reminds me of those days long gone when at school in gym. I learnt how to vault! This seems likely to be historically, where the vaulting over the leather ‘pommel’ horse in the gymnasium originates from. Indeed the term pommel refers to the upward curving or projecting part of a saddle in front of the rider. Wow! I wish a man could jump up without molesting me and ride pillion (aloso a part of a saddle, padded at the rear) on a steed down Cornmarket! It makes me think of the Three Musketeers, swashbuckling (the etymology of this is less clear). I wonder whether any female highwaymen were recorded as capable of such heights – was it really only gentlemen who could do more than just swing a leg? Also, vaulting must have been a part of battlefield skills, and, my other favorite sport, jousting 🙂
Hilarious. I wonder if that’s Charles II in the illustrations ?
Great article, as ever x
I’m interested in the mention of ‘…John Bossely up until 1661 …’. Do you have further information about him? With the dancing connection, he may have been a descendant of the musician John Bosely, who died in 1621, but whose son called John was born in 1615. Or maybe a descendant of the musician Hugh Bosely who took on apprentices in 1606-1615. Bosely was sometimes spelt Bozely, and there’s no reason to rule out Bossely as another variant. It seems that Bosselys had lengthy family relationship with the Bocardo, as is shown by the Council Act of September 10th 1610 which stated that ‘A proviso shall be put into Bossley’s lease not to suffer any dancing after ten o’clock at night or before five o’clock in the morning.’
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol4/pp425-441
This is where I got my information.
The original source is HE Salter City Properties – in which he does indeed state that their hours were regulated to keep the noise down.