Editing Boules (section)

==Boules games in history==
[[File:Gavarni - Le joueur de boules 1858.jpg|thumb|Boules player, by Paul Gavarni, 1858]]
As early as the 6th century BC the [[ancient Greeks]] are recorded to have played a game of tossing coins, then flat stones, and later stone balls, called ''spheristics'', trying to have them go as far as possible. The [[ancient Romans]] modified the game by adding a target that had to be approached as closely as possible. This Roman variation was brought to [[Provence]] by Roman soldiers and sailors. A Roman sepulchre (now in the [[Giampietro Campana|Campana Collection]] in the [[Louvre]]) shows children playing this game, stooping down to measure the points.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Marco |last1=Foyot |first2=Alain |last2=Dupuy |first3=Louis |last3=Dalmas |title=La Pétanque: la technique, la tactique, l'entraînement |publisher=Robert Laffont |date=1984 |isbn=9782221044346}}</ref>

After the Romans, the stone balls were replaced by wooden balls. In the [[Middle Ages]], [[Erasmus]] referred to the game as {{lang|la|globurum}} in [[Latin]], but it became commonly known as boules (i.e. 'balls'), and it was played throughout Europe. [[King Henry III of England]] banned the playing of the game by his archers – he wanted them to be practicing archery, not playing boules.  In the 14th century, [[Charles IV of France|Charles IV]] and [[Charles V of France]] forbade the sport to commoners; only in the 17th century was the ban lifted.<ref>Foyot, et al (1984); p. 16.</ref>

By the 19th century, in England the game had become [[bowls]] or "lawn bowling".  In France it was known as {{lang|fr|boules}} and was played throughout the country. The French artist Meissonnier made two paintings showing people playing the game, and [[Honoré de Balzac]] described a match in {{lang|it|La Comédie Humaine}}.

In the [[South of France]], the game evolved into {{lang|fr|[[jeu provençal]]}} (or {{lang|fr|boule lyonnaise}}),<!--French does no capitalize geographic names in adjective form.--> in which players rolled their boules or ran three steps before throwing a boule. The game was extremely popular in France in the second half of the 19th century (the first official club was established in France in 1854).  It was played informally in villages all over Provence, usually on squares of land in the shade of plane trees.  Matches of {{lang|fr|jeu provençal}} around the start of the 20th century are memorably described in the memoirs of novelist [[Marcel Pagnol]].

In 1910, an offshoot of {{lang|fr|jeu provençal}} called [[pétanque]] was developed in the town of [[La Ciotat]], in [[Provence]]. It eventually became the dominant boules sport in France, and is widely played in other European countries.