Real tennis, jeu de paume and the roots of the game.

A game of the palm

Wikipedia's history of tennis says most historians place the start of the ancestor game in northern France in the 12th century. Players then hit the ball with the palm of the hand, and that is where the French name jeu de paume, the game of the palm, comes from.

The International Tennis Hall of Fame calls this older game court tennis and describes it as played in medieval monasteries and other walled spaces. In a 2016 piece on the lawn tennis patent, its curator called lawn tennis more an evolution than an invention, which is the thread this page and the next one follow.

The earliest records

The Hall of Fame's short history of real tennis gives a run of early dates:

• church writers mention the game in the 12th century;
• a bishop was reprimanded around 1200 for missing evensong to play;
• the earliest recorded private court was at Poitiers in 1230;
• in 1245 the Archbishop of Rouen banned French priests from playing jeu de paume;
• Charles V built a court at the Louvre in 1368.

The Tennis and Rackets Association, the UK governing body for real tennis and for rackets, adds that the first published rules of tennis were Hulpeau's Ordonnance, printed in Paris in 1592.

From the hand to the racket

According to the same Hall of Fame history, players did not move straight from the bare hand to the racket. Gloves came first, then thong bindings, then a wooden paddle called a battoir, and the racket was adopted in the early 16th century. The later story of the racket, from wood to steel and composites, is on rackets from wood to graphite.

Tennis in the British Isles

The Tennis and Rackets Association records the first reference to tennis played by hand in the British Isles during the reign of Alexander III of Scotland, who reigned from 1249 to 1286. It says Cardinal Wolsey built the first court at Hampton Court Palace, and that Henry VIII later replaced it.

The association itself was formed in 1907, first based at the Prince's Club in London. It still governs both real tennis and rackets, the second being the game the World Squash Library connects to the birth of squash; that story is on squash at Harrow and after.

Revolution and revival

The Hall of Fame says the French Revolution of 1789 nearly ended the game in France. It notes that the Tennis Court Oath was sworn at Versailles that year. It then records a revival during the 1800s, in both France and England.

It was in that revival century that the older game acquired its English name. Wikipedia says "real tennis" is a 19th-century label, adopted to tell the old indoor game apart from the new lawn tennis that appeared in the 1870s. The Hall of Fame calls the same game court tennis.

Where the word "tennis" comes from

The origin of the word is disputed. A claim that it comes from Tinnis, a town in Egypt, is in circulation. The ITF, the world governing body for tennis, is reported to say that the French explanation has more evidence behind it. The ITF's own history page returned no text when it was fetched for this site, so its exact wording was not read, and its position here rests on a search summary.

What this page does not cover

Real tennis is still played, and in the UK it is still governed by the Tennis and Rackets Association, but this site covers it only as the root of lawn tennis. The rules of tennis as the ITF sets them today, in its 2026 rule book, are on tennis. The next step in the story, the outdoor game of the 1870s, is on lawn tennis and Wingfield, and every date on this page also appears in the timeline.