Ancestor of the game “battledore and shuttlecock,” horn-books are shaped like paddles much like the Old English “batyldoure,” a stout board used by washerwomen to beat their clothes clean. The more common form of the horn-book measured around nine inches long and five or six inches wide, with a cord of leather or string attached to its handle in order for scholars to attach it to their girdle. The size and accessibility also made it the perfect recess toy. In present times, these games most closely relate to our game of badminton, in which two players use rackets to volley a shuttlecock over a tall net.
From “History of the Hornbook” by Andrew Tuer, scanned by ttscribe4.euston.archive.org and licensed under CC 1.0