 Hello and welcome to my presentation on board games of medieval Europe When we talk about medieval times the Middle Ages people usually have a vague idea about when this period ended when The age of discovery started Most people don't know so much about when it started, but let's just say the Roman Empire fell apart Okay So when we talk about board games, I I'm only going to talk about Actual board games as opposed to sports or maybe hunting as other recreations So we focus on board games only today The once was a wise king and he asked the question whether our fate whether we make our own fate or All our life is predetermined by the hand of God and he sent out his three advisors to find the answers the first one returned and told him when we Think and plan ahead Then we can plot a path in our life that is Unaltered by any random events just like in chess and the second one brought him the game of Dice and he said no matter how witty you are If God does not favor you your opponent will always roll the better dice and you will always lose the game So the third one said I take the best of both worlds when I Have bad roles in a game. I use my wits to balance that So the image you see here is from a book called Libro de los Luegos It was written or rather commissioned by Alphonse the 10th King of Castile Leon Galicia and so on and so on I'm not sure if he's depicted here and Yeah, at one point he almost became king of Germany But as we all know he didn't make it Richard of Cornwall made the race But if he would have succeeded He would have Been sitting in this what's this? He would have been sitting in this Throne as avid watchers of the game of throne series might know a throne Needs to be impressive Sitting comfort is secondary This is the German King's throne you can see it in Aachen And it's made of stone slabs, but not any old stone slabs When they built it in the 9th century They just stole some stone slabs from the temple of Jerusalem Can't get any holier than that and they just nailed them together every German King has been crowned in this throne and on the right side of the throne You find this curious marking Which is actually a board game the game of Merrill's mills or Morris It has many names and it has been popular even before medieval times and it's still popular today But it's in vertical position so it's a bit hard to play so how did the king play this game? Did he have sticky? Figurines or maybe magic powers or little slaves holding up the the game pieces none of that The game board simply was etched in the floor plates of the temple of Jerusalem Some people just played the game there and it's still on this throne today So the game is so simple you can play it anywhere you just draw your board wherever you are in the mud Or in a stone or whatever you find some pebbles some acorns some shards and you start playing This is what it looks in the book of Alfonso This most of the games I'm going to present today are from the book of Alfonso El Sabio and This here is the depiction of the nine months Morris or Merrill's or mills or whatever you might call it And the game is simple you take turns placing your pieces on the board and When you're done placing them you start moving them along the lines whenever you get three in a row You can remove one of your opponent's pieces Until they have less than three and then you win Now there are larger and smaller variants of this game the smaller one you might know under the name of tic-tac-toe or maybe as the kids nowadays call it match three and The next game is also a very very good game you should try and play it. It's called Alkerk actually Alfonso Named all the games that have played on lines Alkerk, but the name stuck with this one It's similar to the game of checkers Which was invented way later? I didn't find any actual reference in medieval times to the game of checkers which is played on a chess board and So this is the game of Alkerk You move your your pieces one step at a time or you jump over your opponent's pieces Until they have no no no pieces left that's basically the rules and if you if you want to force a Victory in this game you have to add a rule that it's actually not medieval you can add something like you can only move forward or Maybe restrict Repetitions or something but other than that that's it. It's the simple game a very good game. You should try Next this is a drawing from the rune stone of Akelburg It depicts two people playing a board game probably and It's a Game of the tassel family. It's probably a game called nefa tassel it has these markings in the corners and one in the center and The most popular variant of nefa tassel is called tabloot Nefa tassel was played on boards all kinds of sizes all over Scandinavia and This one tabloot is played on the nine by nine board There's the white king in the center on the throne and he tries to escape to one of the corners and His opponent Tries to hinder him and capture the king. So it's an asymmetric game This is this is what's remarkable about the the tassel games And it works like this all the pieces can move just like the rook and chess In horizontal or vertical lines as long as there are no obstacles Capturing goes like this You enclose your opponent's pieces between two of your pieces and then you can remove it from the board If your opponent decides to move in between your pieces, nothing happens capturing the king works by enclosing him from all four sides or As no one is allowed to step on the throne once the king has left it You can also use the throne as the fourth piece To capture the king. So try the game of nefa tassel Then there's a very similar game also from the tassel families. It's called hala tassel and You might know it under the name of fox and geese so Similar to Alkerk The fox tries to capture all the geese by jumping over them and the geese just try To capture the fox by enclosing him so he can't he can't move anymore Also an asymmetric game hala tassel okay Now for something very different and probably the most complicated game I'm going to present today This is ritmo machia, so it's the war of numbers. Oh boy Okay, let's first look at the setup This game is based on math Actually on arithmetic on the proportions of numbers So We divide the base numbers that are the numbers two through nine in odd and even numbers We don't use the one because that's very odd So what we see here is the base Setup for the even numbers two four six eight and This is the first multiplex of numbers a Multiplex is when in a number A number is contained multiple times So the first line is just the base numbers and the second line behind them is just square So they're contained in there twice From this we built the super particulars that's when the new number contains the base number and Part of that number We do that two times and then we built the super partions That's when the new number contains the base number and multiple parts of that base number and that's how we get to the to the super particulars and There's one that's special that's 91 in this case That's actually also The sum of the squares one through six So one squared plus two squared plus three squared and so on and their little pieces stacked on top of each other They form a little pyramid So this is the base setup for Even side outside the same the board is eight by 16 This game was very popular Some people say it was even more popular than chess not sure It was invented around 1030 when the cathedral schools of warms and Wirtzburg actually wanted to decide Which school is better so it was invented by a guy called a silo later Improved by Hermann's contractors and a little more improved in the 1070s when they added color coding and so on and Here's how it works This is how the pieces move so the the multiplex pieces they move just one the super Particularists they move to either in a straight line or at the right angle and the super partions may move three and Either a straight line or a right angle How do you capture your opponent's pieces? There are several methods the first one called eruptual So you measure the distance from your playing piece to the one you want to attack You multiply the number of tiles in between By your your own number and if that matches that the piece attacked Then as you capture it Congresses if two pieces happen to be the same number and with a valid move you would land on the same spot This piece is captured insidia if You place your pieces around your opponent's piece so they sum up in this case. It's 36 plus 45 is 81 then you can capture your opponent's piece and The last one of the your opponent's piece can't move anymore because you surround it. You also capture it so now There is some debate on how capturing actually works because you Can move to this spot. You just captured and removing the piece from the board Might not be as useful. So I think they just turned them around upside down And then they played for the other team This is important because we haven't talked about the goal of the game yet winning in this case Your your goal is not to vanquish your opponent. No, no, no You just go to your opponent's base and there you build Either an arithmetic or a harmonic progression of numbers So in this case the arithmetic progression the difference between these numbers is two so A Five Plus two is seven seven plus two is nine. So this is the arithmetic progression and the other one the harmonic progression The difference between three and four is one the difference between four and six is two and so on so you build Harmony in your opponent's base what a game and I built a replica you can try and play it Okay, finally the probably most popular game of all times Chess so this is actually not from the Codex from Alfonso. This is from the Kameena Burana, but chess was just played all over the world and Yeah, we are going to talk about the medieval chess. It's a little different from what we play nowadays The setup looks very similar If we look at the bottom line There's the rook a night the alfers the firzan The king another oh wait, no and mix it up. It's a firzan the alfers the king another a firzan a knight and a rook and In before them are the pawns eight by eight board Okay, here's how they move the rook and The knight move just like today's chess pieces move The rook as far as he can go and the knight can jump over pieces Also the pawns They move one step at a time forward and they capture diagonally There's the firzan He can move Two two squares exactly and he can jump just like the knight Then the alfers it's actually It later became the queen but at the time it was the alfers which is kind of A counselor to the king or his his vizier So he could move only a little diagonally Later that piece became just more powerful and The alfers either stays with the king to defend him or he can choose in the first move to jump over the pawns and lead them to battle And the king this is just a larger Larger version and he moves just like today's chess king. This is depiction from Alfonso's book and it's Alfonso's book contains a lot of board games, but half of the book is made up of chess puzzles called Mansoob's and What we see here is probably the most popular Mansoob ever Alfonso mentions it three times and The story goes like this there once was a rich sultan and He had a beautiful wife called Dilaram and the sultan played chess and He gambled and he actually gambled his wife and He was unlucky or maybe just a bad chess player The situation did not look very good for him. He's playing white Let's look at the board. This was his position. So pretty much anything his opponent does Will ended a checkmate for white but Dilaram was not only stunningly beautiful, but also very intelligent and probably a lot better chess player than him and she cried out To him and She cried Kim Sacrifice sacrifice your rooks and save your wife This is the active part of this talk White moves any suggestions Did I lose you at written more Machia Slow slow down slow down. So okay, we start with the rook and it's actually a rook sacrifice Has to capture because it's check Now what okay This is this is a very difficult move Remember the the first on He can he can jump Yes, he jumps over the night and it's discovered check from the rook So the king has to move again So oh, yeah here first on jumps king has to move again and And Next move. Oh, he was he was in check from the rook. It was discovered check. Okay next move We're almost there Yes sacrifice the second slowdown slowdown sacrifice another rook and King has to capture Now what we're almost there Simple Kings in the corner. Yes, we moved upon check King has to move. He has only one square where he could where he can go Because the other one is covered by the first on He has to move over there again and final move checkmate night checkmate that's it the most famous man soup ever and That's how we save killer arm Okay There are many variants in the book of Alfonso. This one is the chess Chess of season four seasons chess The colors are spring summer fall and winter and it's a four-player game. This is the great chess There are so many pieces. They are camels and crocodiles and lions and elephants Also notice the pawns are moved a little forward just to speed up the game because I mean It's a huge game. It's going to take a long time to play They thought of many ways to speed up games Also chess and At one point they came up with the idea to use dice So whatever dice you roll determines what pieces you move and That's where we get to the second part of this talk But making dice So this is an illustration about how dice making works back then Now tell let me tell me tell you a little story This is how I tried to create Replica of medieval dice you have to go to a proper slaughterhouse and Ask them for a bovine femur that's the hind leg of a cow and It's huge. It's it's a huge bone. I mean really really huge and If you ask them nicely, they chop it up for you in smaller more manageable pieces But it's still covered in in sin news and stuff So I have to cook it for hours and your whole house smells like soup but you end up with Shimonga's pieces of clean white bone The other half you have to saw them into smaller pieces remove all the brown parts and Brittle porous parts because you only need the straight Bones bones are hollow. So you need the thick thick walls of the bone you saw them Into bars the bars into cubes and you end up maybe with a handful of cubes Then you forge a little tried and drill and drill the nice little holes in them with a with a nice ring around Add some charcoal to a lump of beeswax to make them nice and black and then you have dice in this image And the the last part is where the vendor sells dice to a poor guy who has lost everything Gambling but he's still gambles on Okay, now we have dice. Let's play some games. The first one's called Rifa usually in medieval games you throw Two mostly three dice at once Maybe it's because they're maybe a little uneven. So you even the odds anyway, you throw three dice and You keep throwing until you have two of a kind Then you throw the third one and You add all three numbers. Whoever has the higher number wins The other one I'm going to tell you about is called Azar You throw three dice in the first rule If you roll Six or below or 15 or above You win if you roll between seven and 14 points That's your opponent's lucky number Now you roll again If you roll six or below or 15 or above, it's called a reyazar and you lose If you roll between seven and 14 It's your own lucky number and now you just keep rolling until Either once lucky number turns up again and this person wins if you roll another Azar, it doesn't count There are variants of the game. Yes Well, then you have to start over There are variants of the game like the raised Azar when you Whenever you roll an Azar you have to Put more money and that's actually the point. So if you play this game It might be kind of boring unless you play for money finally board games that involves dice The most famous of them all tablas or Tables or trick-trak or poof or it has many names. You probably know the modern version. It's called backgammon and Basically what you do is you roll dice two or three their countless variations in the book and and thereby your place your pieces Inside the board you roll your dice and move your pieces around to your home board and Finally, you move them out of the board again by rolling dice and as there are many variants and This one is called poof. That's the German word for whorehouse and actually When you went to to poof Then you went to play the board game The meaning has shifted slightly Yeah, there are many variations in the in the book Different different kinds of of strategies. There's one game fallas where you Lose when you can't move anymore. There are variations where When you can't move your piece Your opponent gets your role This speeds up the game There are variations where when you roll doubles You in the modern version you you can move them twice But there you you use the top sides of the dice and the bottom sides so that balances it a little bit and There even variations in board size so there's Usually you have six places on each side of the board But there are variations with seven or eight so you have to have seven or eight sided dice as well There are four player versions. This again is the version of the four seasons It's a little bit like Pachizi, but it has nothing at all to do with that Now finally do we have time? Yeah, maybe a little bit So I can talk about card games This is a depiction from the Stuttgart card game if you ever come to Stuttgart Landis Museum You should see these cards. There are beautiful the picture can't do them justice they're made with gold and they depict dogs ducks does and Falcons I think yeah So very very beautiful card game This one is actually a late one, I think it's from 1503 and The game you play with that is called Conniffel And this is a curious one Because it was around even before the invention of the printing press you can see that How it came in Into Germany or from the southern parts of Europe, I think It came in 1370 it started with the church prohibitions in Basel and the church quickly disallowed playing this game because in this game The the natural order of the world is turned upside down the devil is higher than the Pope And the land's connect is the highest card you can get no wonder the church didn't like it on the other hand that Gave us some opportunity. There was this preacher. He was called Geiler from Kaiser Berg and He damned Playing cards. He was very much against it and by condemning this game. He Pretty much explained all the rules This is good So now we can we can still play the game also We found we found some cards The first ones printed with wooden blocks was around 1440 so it There must have been something I mean when they when they had in the late 14th century When they had so many playing cards that the church had to had to prohibit it They had to have some means of duplicating cards and I don't know exactly what it was But later they used wooden blocks to print them and stencils to color them and I think this one Is a special it was a lucky find Because the city chronicles of Basel big book Was wrapped in paper and this paper happened to be a failed print of playing cards It was just a huge piece of paper and they used it to wrap the city chronicles So someone unwrapped it and they found the whole set perfect The game of carnival is a trick-taking game. It's for four players They're dealt five cards each and they play together two and two It's a very quick game you can play it in between whatever else you're doing. Okay The sources the books are used and here's an overview of all the games. I've been talking about I Recreated all these games. I've been talking about today and I brought them and you are welcome to try them I am going to set it up somewhere downstairs because I think someone else is going to use this room soon but you can try all these games and If you have any questions, I Know that was a lot There was a lot of games in a very short time The question was why many of these games have Arabic names and Yeah, that's true I mean most of the games I presented today are I took from the book of Alfonso and This the region Katalan region It was a melting pot of cultures at the time so there were Arabs and Jews and all all Cultures mixed and the Arabs indeed have a very big influence so many many games actually come from the Arabic culture and I think even chess came from Persia to Arabia and this way to to Spain and then Europe and All the Al-Qurq games. So yeah, that I think that explains why they have Arabic names Yeah, yeah, they're from the Scandinavian region. Yeah They were also popular in England and Scotland I think they even found a game board or a description of a game board that was 18 by 18 Yeah, sorry I am that question was if I have any printed rules for for the games I brought and I'm sorry No, but I will be available and I try to explain the games Most of them are pretty simple and maybe once I explained it to people they can explain to other people coming later. Oh Yeah, yeah, probably I Didn't know about that rule But maybe yes Okay, no more questions. I can tell you some some more anecdotes But I think we're done for now. I'm going to set up some games downstairs. You're welcome to try them. Thank you