No. 151. A Dice-Player.
A burlesque parody on the church service, written in Latin, perhaps as early as the thirteenth century, and printed in the “Reliquiæ Antiquæ,” gives us rather a curious picture of tavern manners at that early period. The document is profane,—much more so than any of the parodies for which Hone was prosecuted; but it is only a moderate example of the general laxness in this respect which prevailed, even among the clergy, in what have been called “the ages of faith.” This is entitled “The Mass of the Drunkards,” and contains a running allusion to the throwing of the three dice, and to the loss of clothing which followed; but it is full of Latin puns on the words of the church service, and the greater part of it would not bear a translation.
It will have been already remarked that, in all these anecdotes and stories, the ordinary number of the dice is three. This appears to have been the number used in most of the common games. In our cut No. 151, taken from the illumination in a copy of Jean de Vignay’s translation of Jacobus de Cessolis (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), the dice-player appears to hold but two dice in his hand; but this is to be laid solely to the charge of the draughtsman’s want of skill, as the text tells us distinctly that he has three. We learn also from the text, that in the jug he holds in his right hand he carries his money, a late example of the use of earthen vessels for this purpose. Two dice were, however, sometimes used, especially in the game of hazard, which appears to have been the great gambling game of the middle ages. Chaucer, in the “Pardoneres Tale,” describes the hazardours as playing with two dice. But in the curious scene in the “Towneley Mysteries” (p. 241), a work apparently contemporary with Chaucer, the tormentors, or executioners, are introduced throwing for Christ’s unseamed garment with three dice; the winner throws fifteen points, which could only be thrown with that number of dice.
No. 152. Ornamental Dice.
It would not seem easy to give much ornamentation to the form of dice without destroying their utility, yet this has been attempted at various times, and not only in a very grotesque but in a similar manner at very distant periods. This was done by giving the die the form of a man, so doubled up, that when thrown he fell in different positions, so as to show the points uppermost, like an ordinary die. The smaller example represented in our cut [No. 152] is Roman, and made of silver, and several Roman dice of the same form are known. It is singular that the same idea should have presented itself at a much later period, and, as far as we can judge, without any room for supposing that it was by imitation. Our second example, which is larger than the other, and carved in box-wood, is of German work, and apparently as old as the beginning of the sixteenth century. Both are now in the fine and extensive collection of the late lord Londesborough.
No. 153. A Party at Tables.
The simple throwing of the dice was rather an excitement than an amusement; and at an early period people sought the latter by a combination of the dice-throwing with some other system of movements or calculations. In this way, no doubt, originated the different games enumerated by John of Salisbury, the most popular of which was that of tables (tabula or tabulæ). This game was in use among the Romans, and was in all probability borrowed from them by the Anglo-Saxons, among whom it was in great favour, and who called the game tæfel (evidently a mere adoption of the Latin name), and the dice teoselas and tæfel-stanas. The former evidently represents the Latin tessellæ, little cubes; and the latter seems to show that the Anglo-Saxon dice were usually made of stones. At a later period, the game of tables, used nearly always in the plural, is continually mentioned along with chess, as the two most fashionable and aristocratic games in use. An early and richly illuminated manuscript in the British Museum—perhaps of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Harl. No. 1257)—furnishes us with the figures of players at tables represented in our cut [No. 153]. The table, or board, with bars or points, is here clearly delineated, and we see that the players use both dice and men, or pieces—the latter round discs, like our modern draughtsmen. In another manuscript, belonging to a rather later period of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol. 157, vo), we have a diagram which shows the board as composed of two tables, represented in our cut [No. 154]. It was probably this construction which caused the name to be used in the plural; and as the Anglo-Saxons always used the name in the singular, as is the case also with John of Salisbury in the twelfth century, while the plural is always used by the writers of a later date, we seem justified in concluding that the board used by the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans consisted of one table, like that represented in our cut [No. 153], and that this was afterwards superseded by the double board. It is hardly necessary to point out to our readers that these two pictures of the boards show us clearly that the mediæval game of tables was identical with our modern backgammon, or rather, we should perhaps say, that the game of backgammon, as now played, is one of the games played on the tables.