Various forms of 'football' can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread, including to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire, though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gealic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage.