Jeu de mail

Jeu de mail or jeu de maille ('pallamaglio' in Italian, Middle French for 'mallet game', or sometimes interpreted as 'straw game') is an ancient outdoor game, originally from Naples, which gave rise to numerous modern sports, such as golf, croquet, hockey and its variations, and polo. It is a now-obsolete lawn game originating in the Late Middle Ages and mostly played in the Kingdom of Naples and France, surviving in some locales into the 20th century. It is a form of ground billiards, using one or more balls, a stick with a mallet-like head, and usually featuring one or more targets such as hoops or holes. Jeu de mail was ancestral to the games golf, palle-malle and croquet, and (by moving it indoors and playing on a table with smaller equipment), billiards.