Roman Games

Roman Games

by Signora Giata Maddalena Alberti

Rota

Image source.

Rota, means “Wheel” and is the Roman equivalent of Tic-Tac-Toe, though the name they called it has been lost. Like most medieval games, the rules have been reconstructed based on similar games.

Rules of play, as researched by Guillaume de Pyrenees (mka Sam Wallace) in his Synopsis of Morris Games class.

Each player gets 3 game pieces.

Players take turns putting their game pieces on any line in the circle including the middle.

Once they've put all 3 pieces on the board, they can move their pieces from line to line, but only to one that's next to the line that they're on.

The player who gets three in a row  first wins.

The players will need to decide before hand if three in a row around the edge of the circle counts or if the three in the row must cross through the center.

Lucky Sixes

Image source.

Felix Sex is Latin for “Lucky Sixes” and is probably a derivative of the earlier Duodecim Scripta and a precursor to Tabula and, later, Nard. The rules for this game are reconstructed, as there are no surviving references to it other than circumstantial. It was played by the Romans and by the people who remained after the fall of the Western Empire (e.g. in Anglo-Saxon Britain).

Each player starts with 15 pieces o  the board. Three dice are tossed for movement. The pieces move  rst up the center line of letters (or spaces), and then over to the player’s left. Finally they would travel to the opposite side of letters and then off the board.

The object is to get all one’s pieces across the board to the final square. If you landed on a square that had an opponent’s piece already on it, that piece would return to (their) square one. If two or more opponent’s pieces were already on the square, then it could not be occupied. Presumably you would be forced to fall short, or rearrange the moves of your own pieces. Each die is counted separately for movement, and all three must be used if possible.

No pieces may move beyond the first ‘word’ until all pieces had entered the board. Likewise, no pieces could exit the board until all pieces had landed on the last word.

As researched by Guillaume de Pyrenees in his Synopsis of Intro to Medieval Board Games class.

Five in a Row

Image source.

Calculi, or “Five in a Row” is a Roman game played on the same board as Latrunculi. Each player has 33 pieces, in opposite colors.

The traditional rules of Calculi, or "Five in a Row," are as follows:

 1. Black plays first.

 2. First person to line up five stones in a row orthogonally (straight across or straight up and down) or diagonally wins.

 3. It is illegal to make a "double open-ended three" unless one is forced to do so.

 4. If the board becomes filled, the game is a draw.

A double open-ended three, or three in a row simultaneously in two directions, is banned because it is too easy to win, and occurs frequently. This rule makes for a much more interesting game, and leads to the strategy in which one tries to make a double "three and a four," which is like a double open-ended three, except that one line is made of four in a row.

As researched by Wally J. Kowalski from Able One Education Network

[Source: Fleurty Herald]

Gaming and the Italian Salone

Gaming and the Italian Salone

By Signora Giada Maddalena Alberti

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate" ("aut delectare aut prodesse est"). The word salon is the French adaption of the Italian word salone, from sala (a reception room found in the renaissance palazzo).

The salon was an Italian invention of the 1500s. In cinquecento Italy, scintillating circles formed in prominent smaller courts, often galvanized by the presence of a beautiful and educated patroness such as Isabella d'Este or Elisabetta Gonzaga. Italy had an early tradition of the “salone”; the courtesan Tullia d'Aragona held a salon in the 1500s, and Giovanna Dandolo became known as a patron and gatherer of artists as wife of Pasqual Malipiero, the doge in Venice in from 1457 to 1462. These gatherings proved to be the model for later salons in Italy and the salon movement which flourished in France throughout the 1600s and 1700s.

Games Fit For a Medici Princess

Isabella de’ Medici, the daughter of Cosimo de Medici, was a beautiful, intellectual, and accomplished renaissance princess in Florence. Under the protection of her father, Isabella was able to live a life of parties, loves, and intellectual pursuits, while managing to delay her move to her husband's home in Rome for over a decade. She was the hostess of a glittering circle of her Florentine contemporaries.

Beautiful and liberated, she not only matched the intellectual accomplishments of her male cohorts, but sought amorous parity also, engaging in an adulterous affair with her husband's cousin. It was this affair - and her very success as First Lady of Florence - that led to her death at the hands of her husband at the age of just thirty-four in 1576. She left behind a remarkable story, and as her legacy a son who became the best of the Orsini Dukes, immortalized by Shakespeare as Duke Orsino in "Twelfth Night". It is documented that in her salone, conversations, refreshments, and pastimes could be had for hours that bled into days.

Plausibly, games fashionable in Italy in the 1500s would have been played in a salone like that of Isabella de Medici. Some of the more popular games, some with Italian origins (*) are:

 Sicilian Chess* - Board game, 1557 (CA#71 p7)

 Blind Dice* - Dice game, 1500s (KWHb p145)

 Italian Draughts* - Board game,1500s (Murray 4.3.3, Bell p73)

 Six-Men’s Morris Board game, obsolete by 1600 (Murray 3.3.20, Bell p92)

 Basset - Card game, 1400s (Parlett p8/53/58/ 64/ 77 and CA#71 p15)

 Cuckoo - Card game, 1400s (Parlett p31, CA#71 p18)

Games Italians Played

These instructions are taken largely from Master Damiano Elie Bellini’s “Gaming Italian Style” class handout.

Grazie mille to him for allowing me to share his information and sources.

Sicilian Chess

This version dates to 1557 and is a variant of medieval chess very similar to the modern game.

In the Sicilian game the pieces, save the queen, move as in modern chess. There is no castling move of the rook and king, and no two-square opening pawn moves. A pawn reaching the opposite side of the board can be promoted to the capital piece that started in the square the pawn reached. A pawn reaching the king or queen’s square would be promoted to bishop. The queen is restricted to move four squares diagonally or one square orthogonal.

Blind Dice

This is a 16th century Italian gambling game.

The game uses six cubed dice, each having a number from one to six on one side with the other five sides blank. The total of all six dice is twenty-one. The game is played by one player at a time taking on the house.

They player puts up a stake, then rolls the dice, and the payoffs are as follows:

Number Rolled           Payoff

0                                  Player loses stake to the house

1 – 8                            Player keeps the stake

9 – 10                          House pays an amount equal to the stake

11 – 12                        Pays twice the stake

13                                Pays three times the stake

14                                Pays four times the stake

15                                Pays five times the stake

16                                Pays ten times the stake

17                                Pays fifteen times the stake

18                                Pays twenty times the stake

19                                Pays twenty-five times the stake

20                                Pays fifty times the stake

21                                Pays ninety times the stake

Italian Draughts

Draughts was played in France, England, and the Spanish Marches before 1500. The first mention of this checker-like game being played in Italy dates from 1527. Elsewhere in Europe it was played later than 1550, which confirms an eastward spread from France.

In the Italian version the board (8x8) is placed so that the double black corner is on the player’s left instead of right. Each player has twelve pieces set up on the black squares of the first three rows in front of him.

The pieces move only on the black squares and black has the first move. The pieces move diagonally forwards one square at a time and may not move backwards.

The object of the game is to capture or immobilize your opponent’s twelve pieces. A capture is made by a piece (man) jumping over an enemy piece and landing on a vacant square immediately beyond. If the capturing piece can continue to leap over the other enemy pieces they are also captured and removed from the board. When a piece finally comes to rest the move is finished.

If an uncrowned piece reaches the opponents back line it becomes a king. Crowning ends a move. After crowning a king can move diagonally backwards and forwards one square at a time, and captures by a standard jump. There may be several kings on the board at a time.

In Italian Draughts, a number of rules apply to captures:

 A player had to take when possible or lose the game.

 A man (piece) could not take a king

 If he had a choice of capture he was forced to take the greater number; if this number were equal (each option containing a king) when there are two or more options, then he must capture wherever the king occurs first. This rule was known in Italy as ‘il piu col piu’ (‘the greater to the greater’).

Six-Men’s Morris

Morris, also known as Mill, Mills, and Merrills, was popular in Italy, France, and England during the middle ages but was obsolete by 1600.

Each player has six pieces and they are entered (placed) alternately, one at a time; each player trying to form a row along one of the sides of either square. If a player succeeds in this he is allowed to remove any one of his opponent’s pieces. When all of the pieces have been played the game continues by alternate moves of a piece along a line to an adjacent empty point. When a player is reduced to two men, the game is over.

In Shakespeare's 16th century work A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania laments that it is no longer played: "The nine men's morris is filled up with mud" (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene I).

Basset

From the Italian bassetta, a card game also known as barbacole, considered one of the most polite pastimes. It was intended for persons of the highest rank because of the great losses or gains that might be accrued by the players. This game financially endangered some of the great French houses and was banned by the King of France.

Basset is a banking game, with a significant advantage for the house. It is purely a game of chance. One player is the banker.

The banker has a full deck of cards, well shuffled. Each punter, or player, has the 13 cards of a single suit of a similar deck in front of him, or perhaps a board with marks for the 13 denominations. Punters put bets on their boards before play begins. Once all bets are placed, the banker turns up a single card from his deck (made up of multiple decks of cards**) and wins all bets placed on the denomination shown (suit is ignored). After the first card is turned up the banker turns up cards from his deck in pairs, putting them on two piles alternately, until all bets are resolved or the deck is exhausted. Denominations that match a card turned up on the first pile lose their bets to the banker; denominations that match a card turned up on the second pile win. The banker must pay equal to any winning bets. As with the first card turned up, the banker wins any bets that remain on the last card turned.

On any winning bet the punter may decline his winnings and let the bet ride in the hope of further winnings.

If the same denomination shows up again on the winning pile, the banker must pay seven times the bet; if the bet is let ride again and wins, the banker pays 15 times; if it is let ride and shows up a fourth time on the winning pile the banker must pay 30 times the bet. Finally, if it shows up four times in one deal, the punter lets it ride into the next hand, and the same card shows up winners a fifth time, the banker must pay 60 times the bet. The decision to let a bet ride is marked by bending up a corner of the card it lies on each time (this is destructive of cards, so it is suggested that you use some other way to mark a riding bet).

Once a payment is declined by a punter (leaving a bet to ride) the punter cannot change his mind until the card shows up again on the winning pile, when he again has the choice of taking his winnings or letting it ride.

** One deck of cards is sufficient for 2 to 3 players, each additional deck allows up to four more players.

Cuckoo

Also known as ranter-go-round, gnav, killekort, chase the ace, and hexencarteis. Cuckoo was first mentioned in Cornwall in the early fifteenth century. By the end of that century it had spread throughout Europe and become a favorite in Scandinavia. From there is spread to the Baltics, Russia, and northern Germany. It is, allegedly, the oldest card game for which directions were printed in the Russian language. It was also quite popular in southern Italy and the western Mediterranean islands.

It is a game for any number of players. Cards rank king=high to ace=low without regard to suit. A stake is determined at the start. The players are all dealt one card each. After the deal, each player, starting from the dealers left, may stand or demand to swap cards with the player to his left. A player may only refuse to swap if he is holding a king, which must then be shown. This continues until it returns to the dealer, who may replace his card with one drawn at random from the pack, if he wishes.

The cards are then revealed and the player holding the lowest ranked card must then pay the predetermined stake to the pot. If two or more players tie for the lowest rank, they must each contribute to the pot. After a player has lost a predetermined number of hands, usually three, he is out of the game. Play continues until there is only one player left in, who then wins the pot.

References:

Bell, R.C. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, Vols. 1 & 2. Dover Publications.

Complete Anachronist #4. Indoor Games, or How to While Away a Siege. SCA, Inc.

Known World Handbook (Third Edition). SCA, Inc.

Murray, H.J.R. A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess. Hacker Art Books, Inc.

Partlett, David. A History of Card Games. Oxford University Press.

[Source: Fleurty Herald] 

Italian Renaissance Games – Gioci

 

Mar26by Fleur-de-Gigi

Biribissi

Many table games were played in the Renaissance home, often after dinner. Men and women, both old and young, enjoyed these forms of sociable play together. They ranged from traditional games – such as backgammon and chess – to new types, which often involved gambling. This was prohibited or regulated by the authorities because of the large sums of money involved.

A popular, though illegal, game played in the home was a type of lottery known as biribissi. Thanks to the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, games such as this were easily disseminated in cheap versions printed on paper. This example has 63 squares corresponding to the same number of tickets below, which are ready to be cut up. The players bet a sum of money on a figure in the hope that it would be drawn.
Play the Biribissi game.

Games Women Played

‘Girls today … take up dice, cards and other masculine amusements’
Desiderius Erasmus, Colloquies, 1529

This complaint comes from one of the speakers in Erasmus’s dialogue on ‘Knucklebones, or the game of tali’. He would have easily recognised the sheet of playing cards, printed from a wooden block, with the knave (or jack) of hearts and the knave of diamonds repeated alternately. The figure of the ‘knave’ originally meant ‘a son’ and had no negative connotations at the time. It was only later that it came to mean a rogue. The sheet dates to the late 15th century and shows two of the four suit signs that had been adopted by French card-makers by this date, the same spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds that are in use today. The cards are marked with the initials G.S.C. and G. Cartier, which suggest that the artist was Giles Savouré (also known as ‘Cartier’ or ‘Cardmaker’ in French), who worked in Lyons from about 1480 to 1506. This survival of the artist’s name is very unusual as playing cards were ephemeral objects that became bent and dirty through use and were eventually thrown away.

When card games arrived in Europe in the early 14th century, they were at first the preserve of the well-to-do because the cards were hand-painted and subsequently expensive. However, the advent of woodblock printing led to a system of relatively cheap mass production, in which cards could be printed in sheets from a single wood block.
As a result, card playing became exceedingly popular with both men and women and at all social levels – so much so that a Paris decree in 1397 forbade people to play at ‘tennis, bowls, dice, cards or ninepins on working days’, while Henry VII of England (reigned 1485–1509) forbade servants and apprentices from playing at cards except at Christmas. Preachers, theologians and moralisers all railed against their use. In Bologna in 1423 the Franciscan friar, and later saint, Bernardino da Siena preached so successfully against gaming that the people threw thousands of cards onto a great bonfire in the public square.

Part of an uncut sheet of playing cards by Gilles Savoure. Lyon, 1490.

Despite these strictures, gambling was still a widespread pastime. Furthermore, playing for fun, rather than for money, was not condemned, so cards themselves did not attract censure. Indeed, when the 15th-century artist Antonio Cicognara painted a set of tarot cards (used for gaming rather than divination) and presented them to Cardinal Sforza, the Bishop of Pavia and Novara, the cardinal evidently felt no moral qualms in asking the artist to make similar packs for his sisters, who were nuns in the Augustinian convent in Cremona.
Women were often avid card players. Parisina Malatesta, the young Duchess of Ferrara, ordered an expensive hand-painted pack for herself in 1423, and a year later sent off for two cheaper packs for her little twin daughters, Lucia and Ginevra. That women often gambled with money is also clear. Mary Tudor (1516–58), daughter of Henry VIII of England, and later Mary I of England, ran up substantial debts due to her constant card playing, while the pious archduchess Johanna of Austria seems to have enjoyed better luck in the popular French card game of piquet.

Via: V&A Museum UK

[Source: La Bella Donna]

Games Galore

By THL Raffe Scholemaystre

Many games developed throughout period to entertain the gentles of the this time. Many of these games have been passed down to us nearly unchanged exfept for the name, while others have kept the name but have changed greatly over time.

Only some of the games that were played in period have been played throughout history. Games like Mancala, Marienbad (or Nim), the Morris variations and Tables (now generally called Backgammon) have existed in one form or another back to ancient Egypt and Mesoptamia and some back to pre-history. Dice have been found dating back to at least 900 BCE. Mancala and Morris and Marienbad seem to have been common in many cultures around the world.

Other games were developed in one area and spread elsewhere. The classic example is that of Chess. It was developed probably in India and was common in the Arabic world by the time of the Crusades under the name Shatranj. It was introduced into Europe and developed slowly into Renaissance Chess fairly similar to modern Chess.

Tables or Backgammon was popular in Roman times, faded and then was reintroduced again through Islamic culture. Backgammon started with many variations and eventually Nard would become the version most play today.

The development of the playing card, around 1371, changed games forever. Dice became less important as cards gained popularity, One of the earliest card games, Thirty-One, was an adaptation of a dice game of the same name. Many late Medieval card games survive today, but under new names. Vieux Garcon became Old Maid, Andare a Piscere is Go Fish, and Noddy is a precursor to Cribbage, which was developed in the 1630’s.

However the games of Bridge, Poker, Rummy, Solitaire, Black Jack, Euchre, Dominoes and Chinese Checkers were developed after 1700 and many late in the 19th Century. While some games like Parcheesi did not reach Europe until the late 17th Century.

In the accompanying chart, I have attempted to layout what games were developed or introduced into what region and when. If a game was played in an earlier period, one can generally assume that the game was known later.       Since many rules varied by gepgraphy and over time, it is very important that the players opf a game agree on the rules you will be using before you begin play. For the exact rules for the games noted here please consult the texts listed below.

Smith, P.J., “Period Pastimes”, The Complete Anachronist #71, SCA Inc, Jan 1994

Schovanek, J., ed. “Indoor Games”, The Complete Anachronist #2, SCA Inc., Jan. 1983

Salamallah, Medieval Games, Raymond’s Quiet Press, Albuerque, NM, 1982.

Bell, R.C., Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations (Revised Edition), Dover Publications Inc., 1979