Shakespeare
and the earliest allusion that we can find to the word is in Dryden, who speaks of the manner in which it was carried when not in use in attack or defence:- "His quarterstaff which he could n'er forsake, Hung half before, and half behind his back."
It seems probable that it went out of date soon after his time, for the bow was discarded as a weapon after the reign of Charles II., and the quarterstaff had been co-existent with the bow perhaps for centuries.
Use or Play. There is a little pamphlet still existing, but extremely rare, by one R.
Peecke, published in London, 1626, 4to., entitled Three to one; being an English- Spanish combat performed by a Western gentleman of Tavystock, in Devonshire, with an English quarterstaff, against three rapiers and poniards, at Sherries, in Spain [on November 15th, 1625], in the presence of the Dukes, Condes, Marquises, and other great Dons of Spain, being the Council of War. Peecke himself was the actor in the combat.
That this is not the only occasion on which the staff has been pitted against the steel, we find in Pierce Egan's Book of