Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Period Games:

An Introduction and Overview

By Jheromyn ben Mikiel

Games can add a lot of enjoyment and entertainment when included in SCA events and parties. Modern games with period themes are fun but historical games add much more flavor and can be the focus of increasing our knowledge on how ancient people occupied their leisure time.

Playing games was a social activity in which both learning and teaching game play was an integral part. We know many historical games existed only through artwork, artifacts, and references in texts. We don not have the actual recorded rules for many games and historians have had to make educated guesses at how they might have been played.

The realm of games encompasses a wide range of pastimes. Dividing games up into categories makes it easier to provide a simplified overview of them. Discussion of specific games and how they were played require their own full articles.

The basic categories that games can be dividing up into are: children games, sports, dice/coins/bones games, board games, table games, card games, and tile games. These games are defined as follows:

Children Games

These are simple games that mainly children would play. They cover all the types of adult games. Examples: marbles, hopscotch, hoop, cup and ball, etc.

Sports

Almost any game that requires a significant amount of physical activity can be categorized as a sport. These games are generally played outdoors. Examples: hurling, tennis, wrestling, bowling, darts, lacrosse, shuffleboard, horseshoes, archery, etc.

Dice/Coins/Bones Games

Games of chance that were played by rolling dice, throwing knuckle bones, or flipping coins fall into this category. These types of games were almost exclusively involved with gambling. Examples: tali(knucklebones), tesserae, hazard(craps), put and take, capita aut navia (heads or ships), etc.

Board Games

Chess is the chief example of a historical board game. These games involve a game board with playing 'pieces'. They may utilize a random aspect involving rolling dice or they may be a purely a game of wits. Examples: chess, backgammon, Chinese checkers, go, mancala, checkers, tablero, etc.

Table Games

These types of games require a large specialized playing area or table. These are games that require physical skill to play. Examples: billiards, snookers, table tennis, shove ha'penney, etc.

Card Games

Games of chance and skill using decks of paper cards. There are records of historical card decks such as we have today with 52 cards. However, many ancient card games used either tarot card decks or unique decks with various symbols and even five different suits. Examples: cribbage, bone-ace, all fours, tarot, flor, maw, ruff and honours, etc.

Tile Games

These are games that utilize tiles that are arranged on a flat playing surface, such as a table, similar to some card games. The tiles were generally made of wood and marked with numbers or symbols. Examples: mah-jongg, dominoes, runes, etc.