Games, Pastimes, & Toys

This exhibition explores Asia’s fundamental role in the development and refinement of games. It brings together some of Asia's most significant examples of boards, pieces, and other game playing paraphernalia from museums and private collections worldwide.

A single establishment might well serve multiple functions. While a single building might serve as a church for the Glory of God and yet at the same time be a hospital to tend to the sick and injured, another multi-purpose establishment might be combination restaurant, bar, gambling den, and brothel. One such establishment has left a curious document, which details various games played and wagers placed within, during the later years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first. These games include Hazard, Basset, High Roll, Quilles, Shove-Groat, Landsquenet, Ranter Go Round, Poch (or Glic), Alquerque A Doz, Queek, and the Game of the Goose.

A traditional tavern game usually played outside of English pubs. The flonker, or swatter, then attempts to flonk, or hit, the players of the other team with the dwyle, a beer-soaked rag hung on the end of a broomstick. The players are allowed to duck or dodge, but must remain within reach of the dwyle at all times.

A public institution dedicated to research and the collection, preservation, and exhibition of games and game-related objects.

Annotated bibliography of sources relating to pre-17th century games.

The Japanese held formal and informal poetry contests, both pre-written and extemporaneous poetry on specified themes; not only a form of entertainment, but a way to make or break one's social prestige in the Imperial Court. This article demonstrates how the poetry games of medieval Japan can work as creative entertainments within the SCA.

By Dagonell the Juggler.

Hopscotch began in ancient Britain during the early Roman Empire. The original hopscotch courts were over 100 feet long and used for military training exercises. Roman children drew their own smaller courts in imitation of the soldiers, and added a scoring system.

The Norse people delighted in games and sports. Both indoor board games and outdoor sporting competitions appear to have been regular leisure time activities. The saga literature and archaeological evidence support this view.

Medieval games, and especially children&# 39;s games, reconstruc ted from medieval manuscript s and descriptio ns.

Contrasting the games of the noblemen to the games of the peasants as seen in late medieval iconography.

Pastimes in Elizabetha n England.

Notes on games and gaming in 16th century England.

Also online at www.florilegium.org/files/E...RTAINMENT/Marbles-art.html

A page specifically dedicated to Really Old Games, intended to cover anything and everything pertaining to games in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Site includes an annotated games bibliography .

Links to extant pieces of pre-17th century gaming equipment, as well as depictions of people playing games.

Saga accounts and archaeolog ical evidence show what men, women and children from Scandinavi a and Iceland amused themselves with during the Viking era.

Website of exhibition held by E&J Frankel, New York. Photos and brief descriptions of Chinese playing pieces, game boards, and other equipment.

Dice and dice games, gaming pieces and board games (including hnefatafl, duodecim scripta, merels, halatafl, chess, and draughts), knucklebones, and riddles.

Some of the sports, games, music, verse, dancing, toys, and other pastimes of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Despite the full agricultural year that most people faced, there was always time for folk to partake in games, challenges, tests of skill and general larking about.

There are many period games for which we have rules, or at least are capable of guessing at the rules. This webpage has a fairly exhaustive list of links to rules for SCA-period games.

Short History of the game of Tuho, or Pitchpot, up until the 16th century. Discusses jar and arrow shape, materials, game rules, and Confucian philosophy. Has examples from China, Japan and Korea.

Links to related articles.

Images of adults and children on stilts from the 13th-16th centuries.

Philip Stubbes started writing around 1581 producing small tracts in which he sharply denounced the manners, pastimes, fashions and culture in England. His major work, The Anatomie of Abuses, was first published in 1583.

P hilip Stubbes had a gift for keen observatio n. Although his comments should not be considered to reveal mainstream thought or opinions of the time, (even his contempora ries thought him extreme) his virulent attacks on the abuses in fashion and English society provide us with a detailed, colorful and picturesqu e glimpse into the England of Shakespear e's youth.

Alphonso X's Book of Games is an invaluable source of information on games of the past. It was commissioned between 1251 and 1282 by Alphonso X, King of Leon and Castile.

History and useful information.

The Vikings had a great many amusements, from very physical sports such as footracing, swimming, wrestling and skiing, to horse fighting, playing a game very like the Scottish sport of curling, and several board games.

In spite of a large body of literature on the Norse world during the Viking era the topic of Norse pastimes is poorly represented. This paper is an attempt to provide a survey of what is currently known about the topic. A listing of available articles, archaeological artifacts, references from some of the sagas, books, and web pages will all be given space here.