Medieval and Renaissance Games and Gaming Equipment

The primary concentration of this page is on pre-17th century games. Links on board games, card games, dice games, and ball games have been moved to their own pages, since this page was getting fairly long.

For more information about how some of these games were played, see this page. The Online Guide to Traditional Games is a good page for history and "useful information" about some of these games. You can also find rules for these and other games.

See also Art History of Cheating for additional related artworks; other links on games and game-playing can be found here.

• Playing bob-cherry (fol. 166v), kayles (fol. 167), and at knucklebones (fol. 167v), The Queen Mary Psalter (British Library MS Royal 2 B. VII), c. 1310-1320
• Hoodman's blind/blind man's bluff (fols. 70v, and 130r, and 130v) and hot cockles (fol. 52r), Romance of Alexander (Bodley 264), c. 1338-44
• Ivory tablet with young people playing games (hot cockles and frog?), Paris, 1340-1360
• Blind man's bluff, a book of love poems (British Library MS Stowe 955, fol. 7), early 16th century
• Children's Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1559-60
  See also graphics and information about the games in the painting.

Some documents relating to medieval games (from ORB):

• A gambling house in which the games are fixed, London, 1375-76
• Gambling and cheating, 15th century Nottingham
• Restrictions on games, Henley, 1451