] Schools had their cock-fights. Travellers agreed
with coachmen that they were to wait a night if there was a cock-fight
in any town through which they passed. When country gentlemen had sat
long at table, and the conversation had turned upon the relative merits
of their several birds, a cock-fight often resulted, as the birds in
question were brought for the purpose into the dining-room.
Cock-fighting was practised on Shrove Tuesday to a great extent, and in
the time of Henry VII. seems to have been practised within the precincts
of court. The earliest mention of this pastime in England is by
Fitzstephens, in 1191. Happily, nowadays, cock-fighting is, by law, a
misdemeanor, and punishable by penalty. One of the popular terms for a
cock beaten in a fight was "a craven," to which we find a reference in
the "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1):

"No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven."

[175] Roberts's "Social History of Southern Counties of
England," 1856, p. 421; see "British Popular Customs," 1876, p. 65.

We may also compare the expression in "Henry V." (iv. 7): "He is a
craven and a villain else." In the old appeal or wager of battle,[176]
in our common law, we are told, on the authority of Lord Coke, that the
party who confessed himself wrong, or refused to fight, was to pronounce
the word _cravent_, and judgment was at once given against him.
Singer[177] says the term may be satisfactorily traced from _crant_,
_creant_, the old French word for an act of submission. It is so written
in the old metrical romance of "Ywaine and Gawaine" (Ritson, i. 133):

"Or yelde the til us als creant."

[176] Nares's "Glossary," 1872, vol. i. p. 203.

[177] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. ix. p. 256;
Halliwell-Phillipps's "Handbook Index to Shakespeare," p. 112.

And in "Richard Coeur de Lion" (Weber, ii. 208):

"On knees he fel down, and cryde, creaunt."

It then became _cravant_, _cravent_, and at length _craven_.

In the time of Shakespeare the word _cock_ was used as a vulgar
corruption or purposed disguise of the name of God, an instance of which
occurs in "Hamlet" (iv. 5): "By cock, they are to blame." This
irreverent alteration of the sacred name is found at least a dozen
times[178] in Heywood's "Edward the Fourth," where one passage is,

"_Herald._ Sweare on this booke, King Lewis, so help you God,
You mean no otherwise then you have said.

_King Lewis._ So helpe me