In addition to card games,how remote control car works board games were already a popular pastime in the Middle Ages. However, they were not, as today, played by the whole family, rather they were games that were reserved exclusively for the adult population. They were not intended for children. The variety of such board games was enormous in the Middle Ages, many board games still known today were developed during this time or at least played in a similar form.
Alquerque
Alquerque (also known as Qirkat) is a strategic board game believed to have originated in the Middle East.
In literature, the game first appears at the end of the 10th century, when Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani mentions Qirkat in his 24-volume work Kitab al-Aghani (“Book of Songs”). In this work, however, the rules of the game were not described. Later, it was assumed that when the Moors invaded Spain, they took El-Qirkat with them. The first rules are contained in the Libro de los juegos (Book of Games) written by Alfonso X of Castile in the 13th century.
Regulate
Before it starts, each player places his twelve tiles in the two rows closest to him and on the two fields on the far right in the middle row. The game is played alternately, with one player drawing white and the other black.
- A character can drag from its point to any empty neighboring point connected by a line.
- A character can jump over an enemy character and take it out of the game if the opposing character is adjacent and the point behind it is empty.
- Several stroke jumps are allowed and even mandatory if possible.
- If a blow is possible, it must be executed, otherwise, the figure will be taken out of the game (or snapped).
- The goal of the game is to eliminate the enemy figures.
Additional rules
- Bell developed additional rules because he felt that the rules given by Alfonso X were not enough to play a good game. These additional rules are:
- A figure cannot pull backward (e.B. a figure in the middle of an empty board would have five moves available).
- No character can return to a point they previously occupied.
- Once a character reaches the back row of the opponent, it can only pull to beat opposing figures.
The game is won if either:
The opponent has lost all his figures.
None of the enemy figures can draw anymore.
The jeux de tables (“table games”), forerunners of modern backgammon, first appeared in France in the 11th century and became a popular pastime of players. In 1254, Louis IX issued a decree prohibiting his court officials and subjects from gambling. Table games were played in Germany in the 12th century and had arrived in Iceland in the 13th century. In Spain, the manuscript Libro de los juegos by Alfonso X from 1283 describes rules for a number of dice and table games, in addition to a detailed description of chess. In the 17th century, a wooden board with backgammon was recovered from the wreck of the Vasa under the belongings of the ship’s officers.
Backgammon is widely used in painting at the time, especially among Dutch and German painters such as Van Ostade, Jan Steen, Hieronymus Bosch and Bruegel. Some of the surviving works are “The Card Player” by Caravaggio (the backgammon board can be seen at the bottom left) and “The Triumph of Death” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (the backgammon board is at the bottom right). Other works include “Hell” (Bosch) and “Interior of an Inn” by Jan Steen.
Great Britain
In the 16th century, Elizabethan laws and church regulations prohibited playing at tables, but in the 18th century, backgammon was very popular among the English clergy. Edmond Hoyle published “A Short Treatise on the Game of Back-Gammon” in 1753, which described rules and strategies for the game.
In English, the word “backgammon” is most likely derived from “back” and the Middle English word “gamen”, which means “game”. The earliest use documented in the Oxford English Dictionary dates back to 1650.
Backgammon Rules
Game Objective
Each player must roll their own 15 tiles across the playing field, gather them all in the “Inner Courtyard” and play out from there. Whoever does it first wins the game.
Game Preparation
Each player chooses a color and receives the 15 corresponding stones. According to the chosen color, we now call the players “white” and “black”. Each player receives two normal eye dice.
Gameplay
To determine the starting player, each player first throws a dice. Who achieves the higher number of eyes, begins. This results in the first combination: from one’s own a thrown dice and from the one dice of the opponent. From now on, both players, who take turns, always throw both dice. By the way, as many stones may be collected on the tips as you want, there are special rules of the game that limit this, e.B. the Egyptian rule, which allows a maximum of 5 stones on the tips. The starting player now draws his correspondingly diced eye numbers. Stones may only be moved in the predetermined direction of tension, never opposite. When moving a stone, the tip on which it stands is not counted. There are established rules for pulling the stones.
Gammon and Backgammon
If at the end of the game the opponent has been able to play out at least one stone, he pays the simple bet. In “Gammon”, if the loser could not play out a stone, he pays the double bet. The triple bet is due in “Backgammon” if the loser could not play out a stone and has no or more stones outside his “Inner Courtyard”.
Chess
The game of chess is one of the oldest board games. It probably originated in India, came from there to Persia and then spread throughout the Arab world. Today, people all over the world play chess. Many say: It is the most exciting and versatile game there is. The name “chess” comes from the Persian word “Shah” and means: king.
Already many hundreds of years ago, people thought: Where does the game of chess come from? Who invented it? And because there was no exact answer to these questions, people made up stories like this one:
“A long time ago, the ruler Shihram ruled in India. He was a tyrant (= tyrant) and his subjects suffered greatly from him. That’s when the sage Sissa invented the game of chess. With this game, he wanted to show the strict ruler how important his subjects are for a king. The king on the chessboard needs the pawns, runners, jumpers and so on – without them he is lost. And in the same way, a real king depends on his subjects. This is what the strict Indian king should learn. King Shihram understood this teaching well. He liked the new game very much and so he became an enthusiastic chess player. He ordered that the game of chess be spread throughout the country.”
This is the first part of the ancient history from Persia. The story is made up, it’s a legend. It gives a nice explanation for the origin of the game – and it shows people that everyone depends on each other, the ‘strong’ on the ‘weak’ and vice versa. Now comes the surprising continuation of the story:
King Shihram was very grateful to the sage Sissa for the new game and for the teaching. He led Sissa to his treasury and told him, “You can wish for what you want, you should get it!” Sissa thought and then said to the king, “I don’t want any of your treasures. I have a different wish.” He went with the king to a chessboard and then said to the king, “This is my wish: I want grains of wheat from you. Place a grain on the first field of the chessboard and then on each additional field of the chessboard twice as many grains as on the field in front of it.” (So: on the second field 2 grains, on the third field 4 grains, on the fourth field 8 grains and so on…) Then the king became angry. He shouted, “I’ve offered you all my treasures – and you just want a few grains of wheat from me?? Will you insult me?” – “Oh no, sir,” said Sissa, “surely I don’t want to offend you. Please grant me my wish, then you will see that it is a great wish.” – The king called his servants and ordered them to cover the chessboard with grains as Sissa wished. The servants fetched wheat and started with it. But soon they realized: It is impossible to fulfill this wish. They came to the king and said to him, “We cannot fulfill Sissa’s wish.” – “Why not?” the king asked angrily. Then they replied: “All the wheat of our country and the wheat of our neighboring countries is not enough to fulfill this wish. There isn’t that much wheat.” Thus, King Shihram received a second teaching from Sissa. He has learned that one should not underestimate the small and small.
The game of chess has very simple rules and still offers endless possibilities. And the chess story with the grains of wheat is a small example of how even the small, simple things can contain big surprises and sometimes miracles.
The emergence of modern chess
During the 15th century, the old Arab and medieval chess underwent a modification in the gait of two of its pieces. Instead of the limited jump to the third field, the runner now moves freely on all diagonals. And the Arab “Farzin”, the king’s advisor, transforms into the most powerful figure, the lady. This now combines the mobility of the tower and the new runner. The consequences for the tactics and strategy of the game are enormous, the game of chess conquers from then on a new technical dimension, which has caused its survival to our days.
It is very likely that this invigorating transformation of chess also took place on the Iberian island, because the first work on the new variety is the book of the Spaniard Lucena, written around 1497.
Mill
According to R.C. Bell, the earliest known game board contains diagonal lines and was “cut into the roof slabs of the Temple of Kurna in Egypt.” He estimates them to be around 1400 BC. Friedrich Berger wrote that some of the diagrams in Kurna contain Coptic crosses, but this makes it doubtful that the diagrams are dated to 1400 BC.
One of the earliest mentions of the game we know today as a mill may be found in Ovid’s Ars Amatoria. In Book III (c. 8 AD), Ovid writes, after discussing Latrones, a popular board game: “There is another game that is divided into as many parts as there are months of the year. A table has three figures on each side; the winner must bring all the figures into a straight line. It’s bad for a woman if she doesn’t know how to play it, because love often arises during the game.”
It is assumed that the game was probably already known to the Romans, because there are many game boards on Roman buildings, even if dating is impossible. It is possible that the Romans got to know the game through the trade routes, but this cannot be proven.
The game could have been played by the sculptors while they were building the huge temples. Inscriptions carved in stone can be seen in many places. top rc cars crashes the mill game reached its peak in medieval England: a brick found on a medieval construction site near Wisbech served as a game board for the brick burners before it was fired. Game boards have been found in the monastic seats of the English cathedrals of Canterbury, Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury and Westminster Abbey. On these boards, holes and no lines were used to represent the nine squares on the board – hence the name “nine holes”.
Another board is carved into the base of a column in Chester Cathedral in Chester. Huge boards for outdoor use were sometimes cut into the green areas of villages. In Shakespeare’s 17th-century work “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Titania refers to such a board.
According to some authors, the origin of the game is uncertain: it has been speculated that the name of the game is related to the Morris dances and thus to the Moorish language, but according to Daniel King, the word “Morris” has nothing to do with the old English dance of the same name. It is much more derived from the Latin word merellus, which means a counter or a toy figure. King also points out that the game was popular with the Roman soldiers.
In some European countries, special importance has been attached to the design of the game board as a symbol of protection against evil.
Tafl Games
Tafl games are a family of old Nordic and Celtic strategy board games played on a checkerboard-like or lattice-shaped game board with two armies in odd numbers. They are probably based on the Roman game Ludus latrunculorum. The names of the different variants of Tafl include Hnefatafl, Tablut, Tawlbwrdd, Brandubh, Ard Rí and Alea Evangelii.
Games of the Tafl family have been played in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Great Britain, Ireland and Lapland. The Tafl game was eventually supplanted by chess in the 12th century, but the Tafl variant of the Sami, Tablut, was played at least until the 17th century.
The rules for Tablut were written down in 1732 by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus and translated from Latin into English in 1811. All modern Tafl games are based on the translation of 1811, which contained many errors. New rules were added to fix the problems resulting from these bugs, resulting in the creation of a modern family of Tafl games. In addition, Tablut is now also played according to the original rules, which have been newly translated.
Several games can be confused with Tafl games because they include the word Tafl in their name or have other similarities. Halatafl is the Old Norse name for fox and goose, a game that dates back to the 14th century. It is still known in Europe and is still played today. Kvatrutafl is the Old Norse name for tables (the medieval precursor of backgammon). Skáktafl is the Old Norse name for chess. Fidchell or Fithcheall was played in Ireland. The Welsh equivalent was Gwyddbwyll and the Breton Gwezboell.
Tafl variants
The only Tafl variant for which a relatively clear set of rules has survived into modern times is Tablut, the Sami variant of the game recorded by Linnaeus during his expedition to Lapland in 1732.
For the medieval game, there is no complete, unambiguous description of the rules, but the king’s goal is to escape to the (various) peripheral areas or corners of the game board, while the goal of the larger squad was to catch him. Although the size of the game board and the number of pieces varied, there was a pronounced 2:1 ratio of the pieces in all games, with the weaker side having a king figure starting in the middle. It is controversial whether dice were used in some Tafl games (e.B. Hnefatafl and Tawlbwrdd).
Alea evangelii
Alea evangelii, which means “game of the Gospels,” was described in a drawing in the 12th-century manuscript 122 of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, from Anglo-Saxon England. It was played on the intersections of a board with 18×18 fields. The manuscript describes the arrangement of the board as a religious allegory, but it is clear that it is a game in the Tafl family.
Ard Rí
Ard Rí (Gaelic: High King) was a Scottish Tafl variant played on a 7×7 board with a king and eight defenders against sixteen attackers. This is the least documented of the known Tafl variants.
Brandubh
Brandubh (or brandub) was the Irish form of tafl. From two poems it is known that it was played with five figures against eight and that one of the five was a “Branán”, i.e. a chief. A number of 7×7 boards have been found, the most famous being the ornate wooden board found in Ballinderry in 1932 with holes for game pieces, possibly to make the game transportable. The name brandubh means “black raven”.
Original rules were not found, but based on these 7×7 boards, the text of the two poems, and the Tablut rules, the World Tafl Federation was able to reconstruct balanced rules that were confirmed by several tests.
Despite the small game board and the speed of the games, Brandubh offers an undeniable tactical and strategic challenge, in which the first mistake very often leads to defeat. The small number of figures means that each of them often has to defend and attack at the same time: it is therefore easy to forget one of these tasks if you focus too much on the other. As in the big games of Tafl, sacrifices are useful, especially for the defenders, but with only four figures, it is important not to weaken the king too early in the game.
Hnefatafl
Hnefatafl (now sometimes referred to as Viking chess) was a popular game in medieval Scandinavia and was mentioned in several Nordic legends. Some of these saga references have contributed to a controversy over the possible use of dice in the Hnefatafl game. The rules of the game were never explicitly recorded, only game pieces and fragmentary boards are preserved, so it is not known for sure how the game was played. If cubes were actually used, nothing is known about how they were used. Archaeological and literary sources suggest that Hnefatafl was played on a 13×13 or 11×11 game board.
Hnefatafl became a popular game in northern Europe during the Viking Age (late 8th century to 1000 BC), a turbulent period full of conflict. When chess became popular in the Middle Ages, the rules of Hnefatafl fell into oblivion over time. Hnefatafl was particularly popular in the Nordic countries and followed the Viking civilization to other parts of Europe, especially to the British Isles and the Viking country Gardarike in present-day Russia.
The game developed differently in different places. Archaeologists have found editions in Ireland and Ukraine, among others. Hnefatafl literally means “fist table”, the term comes from Old Norse.