The first aim of this thesis is to determine the commonalities between games of Antiquity, real tennis, and Basque pelota, based on a review of documents written by authors coeval to these games. Then, the observation of the descendants of real tennis, in their history and their actuality, allows for comparisons to identify inheritances and creations at the origin of Basque pelota. A large part of the work is devoted to mapping out the identities of Basque pelota, based on the analysis of town records in the Basque Country and press articles, mostly from Le Courrier de Bayonne (1851 - 1899). From the rare first records from the 16th and 17th centuries and testimonies contemporaries of the game described until 1899, we draw the mutations, the rules, and the spatio-temporal or socio-cultural conditions of the practice of real tennis / Basque pelota, thus its history over this period. The study of sites of memory, such as sports fields, Basque language, the geography of establishment of Basque pelota in France and in the world, or even the establishment of the tradition of Basque festival initiated by Antoine d'Abbadie, provides an account of other identity elements and of the ever growing complexity of "the" Basque pelota. Finally, the representations of ball games and pelota, in their literary, visual arts, journalistic, and publicity form, are questioned to better pinpoint, on the one hand, the symbols used since antiquity, and, on the other hand, the phenomenon of Basque pelota in its personality and its modernity. The first records and the history of the 19th century exhibit a practice mixing players from the Basque Countries of France and of Spain but a contrasting evolution of the fields and conditions will emerge in the 1880s, and Basque pelota will lastingly be differentiated. Institutionalised in the early 20th century and made international, Basque pelota adopts plural practices, influences from the Americas, and their many paradoxes.