Medieval gambling is a subject well worth delving into. It tells us about human nature not only in medieval Europe but it encourages us to look back long before that and, of course, to the gambling games that have evolved since.

• Gambling In Medieval Times Crossword
• Gambling In Medieval Times Crossword Puzzle
• Gambling In Medieval Times Timeline

At a medieval banquet part of the entertainment would be the opportunity for guests to take part in a game of chance with rewards when they won against the odds or simply beat the other player(s). But what type of gambling would you have seen at a medieval banquet? Before answering this question, let’s take a look at the origins of gambling itself. This will allow us to understand how medieval gambling evolved and its origins.

Precedents Of Medieval Gambling

In most of medieval Europe however, the local inn or tavern was the place to go for any kind of gambling or betting activities. The innkeeper often acted as a third-party pawnbroker, and if the game called for a bank, players would put the responsibility on one of their own. The History of Casinos in Europe Long before Las Vegas Rose up from the desert and transformed itself into the neon capital of casinos, it was Europe who reigned the world of gambling, where the first official casinos opened as early as the 17th Century. What started off as unregulated dice games within the confinements of private homes or the camps of army troops, continued through decades of. Gambling is an old evil, long recognized as such. Some Oriental gambling games have been traced back to 2100 B.C. In ancient Egypt persons convicted of gambling were sent to the quarries. Gambling is denounced in the Hindu code, the Koran, and the Talmudic law. In the Middle Ages, playing games – including chess – tended to imply property changing hands as a result of the outcome, which is the basic definition of gambling. Gaming and gambling on the crusades transcended a number of social boundaries: the ranks of players included the rich and the poor, clergy and laymen, men and women.

Gambling was nothing new to the people of medieval Europe; gambling as a human activity dates back to the Paleolithic period – before written history over 3 million years ago!

The game of dice is believed to be the first known gambling game enjoyed by humans. In Egypt, as far back as 3,000 BC people enjoyed playing the dice game called ‘senet’ and the oldest dice ever found actually date to around 2800–2500 BC. They were discovered in an archeological dig in south-eastern Iran.

In China, there were gambling houses (the equivalent of today’s casinos in terms of the role they played in people’s lives) as far back as 1,000 BC. Card games were played in China in the 9th century and dominoes and lotto games followed in the 10th century.

By the time we get to 13th century Europe, gambling had become an accepted form of entertainment at a medieval banquet. Guests including medieval knights would mainly enjoy playing dice games but in the late medieval period (mid 15th century) they also enjoyed card games which were introduced to Europe by travellers who brought them back from Asia and Arabian countries. France, Italy and Spain feature in contemporary writings about medieval card tricks going back as far as 1408. The history of card tricks is a fascinating subject in its own right.

Medieval Dice Games

Hazard is a dice game that dates back to the 13th century and was very popular in medieval Europe, especially medieval England. It was especially popular with the rich as it was often played for high stakes. According to historians, there are claims of some people enduring huge losses – and not just money. Sometimes in the case of medieval knights they lost their horses, their armour and swords, even whole estates!

Chuck-a-luck was another popular, medieval dice game (played with three dice).

Image left: An early 16th century calendar featuring a dice game called ‘raffle’. Illustration by French artist Jean de Mauléon (circa 1524). More on this at the Walters Art Museum website here

Gambling Houses & Casinos

There were no casinos in medieval Europe. The first gambling house to be referred to as a casino was in post-medieval Europe, built in 1638 in Venice, Italy. It was called the Ridotto.

The playing of card games soon led to rise of the cardsharp where skillful players would hide cards and by means of distraction, often with an accomplice at or near the table, they would replace less worthy cards and cheat their way to winning the game. Caravaggio’s magnificent painting ‘The Cardsharps’ (featured right) depicts such a scene and the looks on the faces of the three characters tell you exactly who are the cardsharps and who is the naive victim of their scam.

With regard to popular, modern-day casino games like roulette and Black Jack, there is no evidence of these being played in medieval Europe. It is believed they were 18th-19th century developments.
There is a wealth of information on medieval gambling for anyone who is interested to learn more. Here are some of the websites that I found offered good information:

The 13th century “Book of Games” written by Alfonso X of Castile (1283)

North Cadbury Court
Such is the love of the idea of medieval gambling there there is even a Grade I Listed building in England with a 13th century, medieval hall (built by the de Moels) which has been converted into a country house with a modern casino in its basement! This might be one of the smallest casinos in the world with space for just 30 gamblers who can choose to play at a blackjack table, roulette wheel and or even in a dedicated poker room.

There were lots of exciting forms of gambling in the Middle Ages (more than nowadays) but they have been totally forgotten by modern people.

By Zsuzsanna Sőregi

Introduction

There are many legendary games in the Middle Ages with professed losses of clothes, horses and, what is more, whole estates, and even halves of kingdoms. But was money really the most important part of gambling?

Our team reconstructed several medieval types of gambling, and we have been playing with people at festivals and company events since 1998. In our Medieval Casino we play with tokens instead of money, and people win gingerbread or small presents. While these prizes have no real value, people still love these games!

The games that you can find in modern casinos like Roulette and Black Jack go back to the 18th and 19th centuries, they have no direct link to the Middle Ages. However there were lots of exciting forms of gambling in the Middle Ages (more than nowadays) but they have been totally forgotten by modern people.

Dice

Gambling In Medieval Times Crossword

The board games with dice were developed in the second part of the Middle Ages. In contrast to tactical board games (such as the chess or backgammon), to play these games you need only fortune, not intelligence or talent. For example, the House of Luck is one of the simplest, but most popular, games. People can play continuously for hours not influenced by age or qualification.

John of Salisbury (circa 1120-1180) tells of about ten types of dice games. The aim of these games was to perform a definite combination of casts, not simply to achieve the highest score. Most of them were played with three dice.

Medieval dice are known from archaeological excavations. Dice made from bone were smaller than those used nowadays. Knowing the size of the medieval dice, it is easier to understand the order of Buda’s town council regarding punishment for cheating with dice. According to the Buda Right Book (the beginning of the 15th century), the punishment for playing with false dice was to pierce the die through the palm of the cheater. It is hard to imagine with today’s large dice with their rounded edges, but it could have been done easily with the small Medieval cubes with a sharp edge.

Gambling In Medieval Times Crossword Puzzle

The Medieval punishments were logical, in that they served to deter the criminal from cheating again. If the die was pierced through somebody’s palm, anybody could see the wound as the proof of cheating, and nobody wanted to play with that person. However, there is no data referring to this punishment being actually used.

Cards

The popularity of dice games decreased during the 15th century, and playing cards became the most popular way to gamble. Cards were introduced to Europe from Asia and the Arab world in the middle of the 15th century, and within a century they spread all over Europe.

A variety of the games were played, and the complexity of some of them was amazing.
There is a reason for such a large number of card game types. Playing with cards was often forbidden in European towns. As soon as a game had been written to the prohibitive list, the next day people had made a tiny change to it and started to play it under a new name.

The dates for some of the first allusions to such games are:

• 1367: the ban of card games in Bern
• 1377: Bazel
• 1379: Sankt Gallen
• 1380: Nürnberg
• 1382: Flanders

The first known playing card signs used in Europe were: sabre, cup (chalice), cudgel and coin. In Italian they were spada, coppa, bastone and denaro. In the 15th century the Germans started to produce and trade cards in large quantities at a low price, and they invented their own signs. At first there were signs of all kind, products of the rich imagination of the artists: pea, pink, grape, pomegranate, book, monkey and other animals et cetera. A beautiful example is the Viennese Court’s Card from 1460s. The signs of this card are the crest of Hungarian, Czech, Austrian and French kingdoms.

After this attempt, the final version was formed within a short time: the German signs are the Herz [heart], Grün [leaf], Schelle [bell], and Eichel [acorn]. Parallel with the formation of the German signs, French signs were born: Tréfle [club], pique [spade], coeur [heart] and carreau [diamond]. Unfortunately we do not know of a complete pack of French cards before the 17th century.

When we perform at markets and festivals, we play 12 different medieval card games, using both the German and French signs. Our card packets are copies of original ones. We have a beautiful Card Roulette board that is a copy of a German original preserved by the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. The rules of this game are unknown, so we developed a game that is exciting and amusing for players.

Presenting (and Playing) Medieval Gambling Games

As an archaeologist and historian I have been interested in medieval games for more than ten years. During my research I realised that uncovering these medieval games is a long, drawn out process. A part of them is known from the written sources; juristic documents from different European towns, writings and books on education of aristocratic children, moral admonition works of churchman-authors, literary works of Bonfini, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Comenius and others.

But usually these sources are laconic concerning the details – such as the rules. Moreover, we cannot know from the written sources what these games looked like. Another source of knowledge can come from game boards now located in different European museums. Unfortunately, no one usually knows how to play these games.

We can rarely assign information from written sources, such as the names and rules of the games, to artefacts with certainty. Instead, we have found out some rules from sources and reconstructed some game boards.

The Place of Games

Gambling In Medieval Times Timeline

The casino isn’t as old as medieval gambling. The term ‘Casino’ has an Italian origin, and means Casa [house] a small country villa, summerhouse or pavilion. The word changed to refer to a building built for pleasure, usually on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo. Such buildings were used to host civic town functions – including dancing, music listening and gambling. One of the first known casinos was the Casinò di Venezia, established in Venice, Italy around 1638, and it is still in operation. During the 19th century, the term ‘Casino’ came to include other public buildings where pleasurable activities took place.

The medieval people played at the ‘taberna’ or at home. ‘Taberna’ means pub in medieval Latin. There was not a set dealer or croupier. Instead, if somebody had to shoulder the role of bank on the basis of the game’s rules, this role was taken in turns among the players. One player played against the others. For our modern purpose, it is easier to make the rules and system of these unknown (forgotten) games understood if they are organised on a modern casino’s system: there are tables with games, and each table has a croupier/dealer wearing medieval costume, who leads the games.

Originally published by EXARC (2012/1) under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 license.

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