Jeu de Mail Flamand (After the painting by Teniers)

Pierre Louis de Surugue

A very loose translation of the title of Pierre Louis de Sugurue’s engraving reads “Flemish mail game,” mail being a variation of the French pallemaille, referring to a ball game that would eventually evolve into golf and other contemporary games. In the 13th century Northern Netherlands, the game was referred to as “colf,” after the hair-filled leather sack used for hitting into a small hole in the ground, and is first mentioned in the poem by Jacob van Maerlant in “Merlin’s Book” in a passage that reads:

Vnde gaff rikesten enen slach / Van den dorpe dat he lach / Mit ener coluen vor zine schene”

Which roughly translates into, “...and hit the richest boy in the village with a colf against his shin.”

The history of colf/golf is varied and expansive, and is often referred to as a pastime for soldiers and traveling merchants in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, and Scotland. In de Sugurue’s engraving, done after a painting by David Teniers the Younger, we are given insight into the evolution of a modern game.