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Medieval Games That You Can Make

Many modern games were popular in medieval Europe, introduced via crusades, trade and Islamic expansion. Mancala arrived from Africa; chess and backgammon from Persia. Checkers is a hybrid of chess and Alquerque, a game introduced into Spain by the Moors. Games like Fox and Geese or Tablut are unfamiliar today, but archaeologists have unearthed game boards and medieval manuscripts reveal clues to the rules of play. Most have simple rules, but like checkers, rely on strategy.

Alquerque
- Alquerque is particularly easy to make and play because of its resemblance to checkers. Mark a square board with 25 spaces in alternating colors. Make two sets of 12 playing pieces. Use pebbles, buttons, counters, cardboard discs or checkers. Move in any direction except backward. Capture your opponent's pieces by jumping them. "Huff" (capture) any opponent piece that fails to jump you when it could have done so.
Fox and Geese
- Start with a square wooden board and drill holes in it to hold pegs. Drill three rows of three holes at the center to form a square. Drill two rows of three holes on each side of this square, aligning the rows to make a total of 33 holes arranged in the shape of a cross. Make 14 pegs and paint one a different color: this is the fox. Place 13 pegs -- the geese -- in the holes on one side of the board. Choose any vacant hole for the fox. The fox captures geese by jumping them and can capture two geese by double jumps as in checkers. Geese cannot jump. They must surround the fox, preventing movement.
Tafl, Tablut and Variants
- These are versions of Fox and Geese in which a king is outnumbered by invaders. The king must move from the central "throne" to any outer square while marauders attempt to surround him. Mark your board either into an odd number of squares, or in cross formation around a center as in Fox and Geese. Decorate the center square to represent the throne. Make one distinctive playing piece to serve as the king, or use a King from a chess set. Make unequal numbers of playing pieces in two colors: marauders outnumber King's men two to one. For example, in Tablut play with one king, eight Swedes, and 16 Muscovites on a board with nine squares to a side.
Merels or Nine Men's Morris
- Merels is a more complex form of Three Men's Morris -- today's tic-tac-toe. In medieval times pieces played on the intersections of the grid, not the squares. Mark a wood board with three concentric squares. Drill holes for pegs at the corners and halfway along the sides of each square, making a total of 24 holes. Draw lines from each hole on the outer square through the corresponding holes of the inner squares. Make nine black and nine white pegs. Two players take turns inserting pegs. Whenever you make a "mill" or line of three, remove an opponent's man. Continue moving pegs to form mills until one player has fewer than three pegs.

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