Bearbait

Could any thing afford a stronger contrast to the grave and certainly severe study to which Elizabeth had habituated herself, than the vain and fantastic puerility of many of her recreations and habits, the unintellectual brutality of the bearbaits which she admired, or the gaudy and glittering pageants in which she delighted?

Source: wiktionary

Congleton had a reputation for bearbaiting and went to some lengths to protect it, sending messengers to Knutsford and Bunbury to ensure that the bearwards got to the Congleton bearbait (see pp 639, 653).

Source: wiktionary

A witness to a bearbait in 1575 intriguingly describes the animal's struggle like a kind of dance, who "if he were ta'en once, then by what shift with biting, with clawing, with roaring, with tossing, and tumbling, he would work and wind himself loose from them."

Source: wiktionary

I went first this morning to the carcass of the bison we had killed for bearbait ; I found a bear had been there, and had already had his breakfast.

Source: wiktionary