Alfonso X's Book of Games

Sympkyn of the Moor

In 1283 King Alfonso X of Castile and León, known as el Sabio (“the Wise”), had his scholars finish a book about games. The Libro de los Juegos, or to give it its own title the Libro de axedrez, dados e tablas (“Book of chess, dice and tables”), is the most important source we have for the board and dice games of the medieval Mediterranean. It sets down the rules of dozens of games, and its illustrations show kings, knights, women, Muslims, Jews, beggars and gamblers all playing them. This page is a starting point for my research into the book and the games in it.

The Book

The original manuscript survives in the library of the monastery of El Escorial, near Madrid, catalogued as Ms. T.I.6. It is a large book, around 40 by 28 cm, of 97 parchment leaves with around 150 painted miniatures, most of them showing a game in progress.

The closing lines of the book say it was “begun and finished” in Seville by order of King Alfonso, son of King Fernando and Queen Beatriz, in the 32nd year of his reign. The date is given as the year 1321 of the Spanish Era, a dating system that ran 38 years ahead of ours, which gives us 1283, the year before Alfonso died. Modern writers often describe it as a work of Alfonso’s scriptorium in Toledo. I still need to find out why the two places differ.

The book is written in Castilian, the everyday language of the kingdom, rather than Latin. Much of the chess material is drawn from Arabic sources, which were themselves based on older Persian works.

Alfonso the Wise

Alfonso X (1221 to 1284) was king of Castile and León from 1252. He earned his name “the Wise” from the huge amount of learning produced at his court, including law codes, histories, the astronomical tables known as the Alfonsine Tables, and the songs of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. The Book of Games is part of the same project of gathering knowledge together and writing it down.

Alfonso appears in the book himself. The opening miniatures show him commanding his scholars to write it, and later ones show him dictating the books of dice and of tables.

Brains, Luck, and the Middle Way

The book opens by explaining why men play games at all. God wanted people to be happy and able to bear their troubles, so they invented games: some on horseback, some on foot, and some sitting down, like chess, dice and tables. Sitting games have a special value, because they can be played by day or night and by people who cannot ride out or play active sports. The book lists women who are kept indoors, the old and the weak, prisoners and captives, people at sea, and anyone stuck inside by bad weather.

It then tells a story, set in the “ancient histories of India”, to explain why there are three kinds of game. A king who loved learning had three wise men who disagreed:

  • The first said brains were worth more than luck, because a person who acts wisely is not to blame even if things go wrong.
  • The second said luck was worth more than brains, because no amount of wisdom can change fortune.
  • The third said the best way was to use both: to take from the brain what is most useful, and to guard against the harm that luck can do.

The king sent each of them away to find an example to prove his case. The first came back with chess, where the better mind wins. The second brought dice, where only luck matters. The third brought tables, the family of games that includes backgammon, where the dice decide what you may move but a skilled player can still avoid the worst of bad luck.

This story shapes the whole book. Chess comes first because it is the noblest game. Dice come next, even though tables is the more respectable game, because tables cannot be played without dice.

What Is in the Book

The folio (leaf) numbers below follow Sonja Musser Golladay’s translation. “v” means the back of the leaf.

FoliosSectionContents
1 to 5ChessThe prologue, the rules of chess and the pieces, and “forced” chess, where captures are compulsory, also called the game of the damsels
5v to 64vChess problems103 chess problems, each with its own illustration
65 to 72DiceHow to make fair dice, and ten dice games: Mayores, Triga, Azar, Marlota, Riffa, Par con As, Panquist, Medio Azar, Azar Pujado and Guirguiesca
72 to 80TablesHow to make a tables board and its pieces, and fourteen tables games (see below)
81 to 84vGreat ChessGrant Acedrex, played on a 12 by 12 board with extra pieces such as the crocodile and the giraffe, and special dice to speed it up
85 to 85vSeven-based games“Decimal chess” and a tables game with seven points in each quarter, seventeen pieces each and seven-sided dice
87 to 89vFour SeasonsFour-player chess for the four seasons, and a four-player tables game called “the World” (El Mundo)
91 to 93vMills and other gamesAlquerque, Corner the Rabbit, Nine Men’s Morris with and without dice, and Three Men’s Morris
95 to 97vAstronomical gamesA “checkers” game and a tables game for seven players, each playing one of the seven planets on a seven-sided board

The Tables Games

The tables section is the one I am most interested in, because it is the richest early source for the ancestors of backgammon. Its fourteen games are:

  1. Quinze Tablas (fifteen pieces)
  2. Doze Canes or Doze Hermanos (twelve dogs or twelve brothers)
  3. Doblet (doublet)
  4. Fallas (drop dead), the Spanish form of the English game Fayles
  5. Seys Dos & As (six, two and one)
  6. Emperador (emperor)
  7. Medio Emperador (half emperor)
  8. Pareia de Entrada (paired entry)
  9. Cab e Quinal (alongside fives)
  10. Todas Tablas (all tables), the closest direct ancestor of modern backgammon
  11. Laquet, which the book says is newly invented
  12. Buffa Cortesa (courtly puff)
  13. Buffa de Baldrac (common puff)
  14. Reencontrat (rencontre)

The introduction to the section also explains why each player has fifteen pieces: twelve can stand in pairs on the six points of one quarter of the board, and the other three are needed to block the opponent in (a “prime”) or to force a tie.

Alfonso and the Number Seven

Alfonso had a clear fondness for the number seven. The book describes seven-sided dice, which it says “could not be made in another way” for the games they were meant for, a tables game with seven points in each quarter and seventeen pieces a side, and the astronomical games played by seven players on seven-sided boards, one for each of the seven planets known at the time.

The Illustrations

The miniatures are as valuable as the text. They show people from every part of Alfonso’s kingdom playing: Christians, Muslims and Jews, men and women, nobles, merchants and beggars. A few examples from the book:

  • Six women playing forced chess.
  • Two monarchs playing the tables game Emperador.
  • Beggars playing dice.
  • A game of Azar Pujado where a fight has broken out and knives have been drawn.

For anyone trying to recreate games at an event, the pictures also show boards, pieces, dice cups, tables and how players sat. Alfonso himself appears throughout, as both a young man and an old one.

Games from the Book on This Site

Still to Research

  • Why the book’s own ending says Seville, while modern sources say Toledo.
  • Translating and trying out the rest of the tables games, especially Emperador and Todas Tablas.
  • The dice games, which read a lot like the ancestors of Hazard and modern craps.
  • Getting a look at the facsimile edition.
  • The later 1334 copy of the book, which is held at the Royal Academy of History in Madrid.

Sources