The game started to form into something recognisable in the 11th century. It started as hand ball, played by monks around the cloisters of monasteries in Italy and France, much as schoolchildren do in any appropriate corner of their school, and rules varied to suit local whims and conditions. Gradually, as monks travelled to other monasteries, the more enjoyable rules were more generally adopted, the more bizarre rules abandoned and people started to add features to their courtyards that improved the pastime, and demolish or modify others that detracted from it. The monks enjoyed the game so much that the Pope banned the playing of it, and by the 14th century the game had spread from cloister to castle and become a game of the nobility.