History

• Stoolball at Traditional Games -- (more)
• Parlett on Piquet -- Goes into quite a bit of history, since this period game has more or less survived down the centuries; does not actually give the detailed rules. (more)
• Fidchell in Dreoilin's Weblog -- A discussion of the game of Fidchell, plus a lot of cultural background. (more)
• A Medieval Battle of Numbers -- An overview of Rhythmomachy by Peter Mebben, one of the more serious students of the game. (more)
• The Beginnings of Chess -- An in-depth academic paper analyzing the sources, with an eye towards figuring out where Chess came from. (more)
• Parlett on Maw -- (more)
• Maproom Publications -- Publishers of a couple of books specifically on the subject of the early history of the Tarot deck and its games. (more)
• Games Galore -- A very useful summary chart of which games were introduced where and when. (more)
• From Ur to Aseb: The Evolution of the Game of Twenty Squares -- A look into the Royal Game of Ur and the Egyptian game Aseb, and the historical relationships between them. (more)
• Description at The History of Chess -- (more)
• New York Magazine, 9 Oct 72 -- Has a small ad for Tablero de Jesus for sale, on page 89. (more)
• Dagonell's description -- (more)
• James Masters' page about the Alquerques Family -- This talks briefly about Alquerques, as well as related games such as Fanarona and Draughts. (more)
• New Thoughts on Dominoes -- A brief page citing some evidence that dominoes may have been known in England as early as the time of Henry VIII. (But see notes below.) (more)
• History of Bowls at Traditional Games -- Much of this is post-period, but it's useful to understand how the family is related. (more)
• The Full History of Board Games -- A long blog post that skims over the surface of the topic. Slightly breathless and necessarily very light on detail, but mostly accurate and hits at least many of the high points. Well-suited counter to any misimpressions that board games are a modern phenomenon, and gives a good sense of the scope. (more)
• The Origins of Backgammon -- A very neat page, citing several solidly medieval sources. (more)
• Chess History and Reminiscences -- A 19th century book on Chess, by HE Bird, transcribed by Project Gutenberg. (more)
• A court case, described on ORB (The On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies) -- Court case discussion about men who cheated at Quek with a chequer board that had depressed squares. (more)
• James Masters' History of Chess -- A quick overview of where the various subfamilies fit in. (more)
• Fithcheall and Gwyddbwyll: Hnefatafl or Not? -- An interesting little article, summarizing the open question of whether these games were actually in the Tafl family (as is often assumed). (more)
• Sonja Musser Golladay's Dissertation on the Alfonso MS (PDF) -- A PDF copy of the full, 1400-page tome about the Alfonso. This is the single most important source when working on this MS, including a full translation, lots of notes and reconstruction details, information about the culture and context, and so on. (more)
• An in-depth paper on Metromachy -- Written in French, including a translation of the Latin primary source into French. (Sadly for us English monoglots.) (more)
• History of Backgammon on Traditional Games -- Brief outline of the history of Tables games. (more)
• A History of Cribbage -- By James Masters, on the Traditional Games page (more)
• Parlett on the Leaf Game -- A discussion of what we know about the ancient Chinese game that purportedly led to the invention of cards (more)
• Hickock Sports on the History of Croquet -- Via the Wayback Machine. Touches on Pall-Mall along the way. (more)
• The Viking Answer Lady on Tafl Games -- A lovely, detailed article on the Tafl family in general, outlining the major variants. (more)
• Irving Finkel's detailed reconstruction of the game -- A more-than-typically detailed writeup of the game, the available source material, and how to interpret it. (more)
• Gwyddbwyll reconstruction from Y Camamseriad -- A nicely detailed article on the Gwyddbwyll and Towlbrwdd, which may or may not be the same game. (more)
• Parlett on Losing Lodam -- (more)
• Organizing the Greed for Gain: Alfonso X of Spain’s Law on Gambling Houses -- An academic article about a little-known law code. No translation, but includes a number of quotes in the original form, and a fair amount of analysis about what we can infer from it. (more)
• History of Battledore and Shuttlecock -- A brief discussion on Traditional Games. (more)
• The Enigma of the Birth of Chess -- A multi-page analysis of what we know about the early history of Chess (more)
• The Lewis Hoard of Gaming Pieces: A Re-examination of their Context, Meanings, Discovery and Manufacture -- (more)
• Islamic Backgammon -- Uses period illustrations to show that something like Irish was played in the Eastern Islamic territories in period. (more)
• Modar on Pall-Mall -- Includes a speculative reconstruction of "Ground Billiards". (more)
• New York Magazine, 20 Dec 71 -- In "Best Bits" on page 89, has a small segment specifically calling out Tablero as a modern invention. (more)
• Taxonomic map of Playing Cards -- A lovely map showing the evolution of the suits, by Lady Heather Hall. (more)
• David Parlett on Noddy -- Nicely detailed description, including some history (more)
• Parlett on Ombre -- (more)
• The Games of Chess and Backgammon in Sasanian Persia -- A longish and very scholarly essay, adducing lots of evidence for early forms of the games in Persia, and discussing what we know about them in Persian society. (more)
• A page on Austrian Tarock -- Collected by Hans-Joachim Alscher; in German, but mostly links, including lots of links to various period sources. Well worth going through for those links. (more)
• Dagonell on Curling -- (more)
• Discussion on The History of Chess -- (more)
• Imran Ghory's Listing of Tables in English Literature -- Via the Wayback Machine. A useful chronology of pre-20th century references to Tables Games, likely useful for research. (more)
• A Pictish Origin for Hnefetafl? -- Speculations about the possible origins of the game. (more)
• Deciphering the World's Oldest Rule Book -- A YouTube video (about 7 minutes) by the curator at the British Museum who managed to put the board and the cuneiform rules together. (more)
• Hazard - History of the Game and How to Play -- (YouTube video, 17 minutes) (more)
• The Asia Society on Sugoroku -- Brief, but useful. (more)
• Imran Ghory's notes on the History of Backgammon -- Via the Wayback Machine (more)
• History of Quoits at Traditional Games -- Goes into some detail about the regional variations in Britain. (more)
• The Wikipedia page on Harpastum -- (more)
• The History of Bocce -- A concise one-pager outlining some of the history we know about. (more)
• Description on The History of Chess -- (more)
• Alternate reconstruction of Grande Acedrex -- A very detailed reconstruction that goes back to the Alfonso MS and looks at it carefully. (more)
• Pre-Gebelin Tarot History -- A blog focusing on "The Moral Allegory of Tarot". It is a refreshing middle ground: explicitly skeptical about the occult side (much of which was an 18th century invention) but looking seriously at Tarot imagery as allegory. Highly opinionated and intriguing, and contains many images of less-known period decks. (more)
• A brief history of the Tarot -- (more)
• Pachisi on Traditional Games -- (more)
• Discussion at The History of Chess -- By far the most detailed discussion of this game that I know of. Mainly focuses on debunking the myths about the antiquity of this variant, arguing strongly that, while it is SCA-period, it isn't as ancient as folks usually claim. (more)
• Damian Walker's Hnefetafl Site -- A large and deep site on All Things Hnefetafl, and really, on the Tafl family in general. Especially strong sections on Archaeological Finds, Literary Sources, and stuff like that. (more)
• Discussion on the History of Chess page -- Makes the point that we are working from very thin information here. (more)
• Shove Ha'penny at Traditional Games -- Has some nice pictures of boards, and an extensive Glossary. (more)
• Met Lecture 1 on the History of Chess -- A YouTube video lecture on Chess (more)
• Board Game Studies -- The main journal of board games research, recently (2014) rebooted as an online journal. Currently run by Ludus, a Portugese games organization. Not exclusively historical or SCA-period, but has enough relevant material to be worth keeping an eye on.

• The Recreational Arithmatic of Rithmomachia -- Free online pdf covering the basics of Rithmomachia using the 1556 rules by Claude de Boissiere. Very in-depth. (more)
• Liar's Dice in Folklore in History -- A good article tracing what we do and don't know about Liar's Dice, and evaluating what is actually plausible in the historical claims. (more)
• Cricket on Traditional Games -- (more)
• Traditional Game Rules -- James Masters' site, some of which is indexed by game here. Some of this is period, but not all. (more)
• Abbas Agraphicus -- The Hnefatafl-focused blog of Alessandro Arzani (more)
• Nine and Three Men's Morris on Traditional Games -- Has some nice pictures. (more)
• Dagonell on Gameball -- (more)
• Biography of a Board Game: Game of the Goose -- A very good, short (~9 minute) capsule history of the game, in podcast form. (more)
• History of Games Timeline -- A partial but useful timeline of a number of games, from Rose and Pentagram. (more)
• Asia Society on Pachisi -- (more)
• Susan Granquist's page on Tafl -- A relatively brief description. (more)
• On the Origin and Diffusion of European Ball Games, a Linguistic Analysis -- An academic paper on where the games came from (more)
• The Old Texts -- A deeply detailed chronology of the known Chess sources. Note that this runs five pages -- don't miss the navigation bar at the end! Nicely color-codes the sources (Indian, Chinese and European) so you can keep track of these highly parallel histories. (more)
• A Family Tree of Card Games -- A lovely infographic, showing many different games and roughly how they are connected. (more)
• Wikipedia on Curling -- (more)
• Sonja Musser Golladay's dissertation on the Alfonso MS (hardcopy) -- This link is a search into University Microfilms' dissertation service. Golladay's dissertation is the masterwork on the Alfonso MS, including a full translation, copious notes and reconstruction details, and all sorts of information about the art and culture surrounding the book. It is a must-have for anyone researching this text. (more)
• Fox and Geese - How to Play and History of the Game -- (YouTube video, 15 minutes) (more)
• Description from Abstract Games -- Discussion of Alquerques and a bunch of similar games. (more)
• Description of Tamerlane Chess at The History of Chess site -- Goes into more detail about this game than most sites. (more)
• A bit on the history of Courier Chess from The Chess Collector (pdf) -- (more)
• Tennis at Traditional Games -- (more)
• Jean-Louis Cazaux' speculations about Ashtapada -- This page has an in-depth discussion about why the author disagrees with HJR Murray's reconstruction, and provides his own best guess about how the game way played. (more)
• On the Explanation of Chess and Backgammon -- A medieval Persian source, describing how Chess came to Persia and how "backgammon" (games within the Tables) was invented. (more)
• Pall Mall at Traditional Games -- A good look at the known history of the game, during and after period. (more)
• Billiards on Traditional Games -- A quick but good overview of the evolution of this family of games. (more)
• History of Bocce at bocce.org -- Via the Wayback Machine. (more)
• Hickock Sports on Curling -- Via the Wayback Machine. (more)
• Ragnar Thorbergsson's Analysis of Tafl -- One of the more important articles on the subject, this doesn't just use the sources, it also does some analysis of the playability of different reconstructions, in order to find the most plausible reconstruction. (more)
• Ringing the Bull at Traditional Games -- (more)
• Parlett on Karnoeffel -- (more)
• Rithmomachia, the Great Medieval Number Game -- Article published April 1911 in The American Mathematical Monthly. (8 pages) (more)
• A 14th c. MS with info about Merels and Tables -- (more)
• Shovelboard on Traditional Games -- (more)
• Merels at the Museum of Games -- (more)
• Mancala on Traditional Games -- An overview, describing the variety of the games. (more)
• Hnefatafl World Championship -- Run by the Fetlar organization, and gives a bit of info about the game itself (more)
• Parlett on Reversis -- (more)
• Trionfi -- A substantial website dedicated entirely to the history of Tarot. Well worth digging into if you are interested in the early history of the decks. (more)
• Accademia del Tarocchino Bolognese -- In Italian -- has a number of interesting-looking articles on the game, some of them relating to its history. (more)
• Strawberry's reconstruction of Karnöffel -- A dash of history, and a couple of reconstructions. (more)
• The Game of Seven: Glückshaus and Related Dice Games -- Free PDF of an article about the game of Sevens or Gluckshaus. (more)
• Rounders at Traditional Games -- (more)
• Parlett on Costly Colors -- Goes into some detail about what little we know about the game (more)
• Description at The History of Chess -- In English with transcription in Old Spanish (more)
• Parlett on Loo -- He has several reconstructions, and is looking at a broader sweep of history; I haven't yet checked his writeup against Cotton specifically yet. (more)
• History of Boules and Petanque -- From "la boule bleue", a French company making high-end boules sets. (more)
• de vetula, the 13th century d&d poem -- Blog page about rolling dice and the probability of outcomes in De Vetula (more)
• The Asia Society on Backgammon in Persia and China -- (more)
• Jean-Louis Cazaux' History of Chess -- An excellent in-depth site, giving lots of information on the topic. Discusses the history, the archaeology, lots of papers about chess, many variations (including a lot of Eastern variants), etc. (more)
• Skittles on Traditional Games -- Gives a good deal of history, and information about regional variations in Britain. (more)
• A brief history of playing cards -- By Thierry Depaulis. (In French) (more)
• The History of Playing Cards -- An overview history hosted at the IPCS. (more)
• Sten Helmfrid on Tafl Games -- Nominally focused on Hnefetafl, but really a fine, deeply detailed overview of the entire family. (more)
• The TarotL History Information Sheet -- Compiled by members of the TarotL group, this is a concise look at various myths about the deck, and the current historical understanding. (more)
• A History of Chess, by HJR Murray -- The definitive work on Chess history and variants. A century old, but still the gold standard. (more)
• Carolus Chess page -- An interesting overview of the history of chess. A few sections need a grain of salt, but worth looking over. (more)
• Archive of an email discussion about Tablero -- This is where the hoax originally came to light. (more)
• Gluckhaus at The Reverend's Musings -- A good quick description of the game, with a little history and illustrations of several boards. (more)
• Medieval European Chess at The History of Chess -- A very good, not-too-long description of core SCA-period chess. (more)
• The Game Cabinet on Tafl Games -- An overview of the family, including some of the more distant cousins, Seega and Latrunculi. (more)
• Chronology of Backgammon and Tables in England -- Via the Wayback Machine. A summary of some major references to Tables in English literature. (more)
• Wareham Forge on Hnefetafl -- Includes a bunch of links. (more)