The Ace's Boke

Being a Collectyon of Letters Unto Their Excelencies of Carolingia, on the Arte and Mysteries of Gaming

As observ'd by Justin du Coeur, known as "Ace"

This section collects a series of articles I've been writing for The Carolingian Minuscule, the local newsletter for the Barony of Carolingia (the Boston branch of the SCA). The articles are something of an experiment, with several purposes. First, I wanted to teach gaming in general. Second, I wanted some practice with Elizabethan-style English. Third, I wanted to come out, at the end, with a book that I could hand to people for use in Le Poulet Gauche (our local tavern, which attempts to keep a very high level of authenticity to its late-16th-century French setting).

The Ace's Boke is, at this point, a work in progress. I'm writing one article at a time, essentially as the whimsy suits me, and when the deadlines require. I'm trying to strike a subtle compromise, keeping to a very period writing style while nonetheless attempting to be a bit clearer than most of the period sources. When I've got enough material and motivation, I plan on rewriting much of this to better suit a book format, and produce a collected edition, to be sold at Pennsic.

The chapters so far include:

• The Epistle of the Boke.
• A discussion of the Types of Games.
• A description of Piquet, a card game for two.
• A description of Gleeke, a card game for three.
• My interpretation of Early French Tarot, one variant of the common Tarot-deck games.
• A description of Irish, the immediate predecessor to Backgammon. This has an accompanying illustration (in MS Paint BMP format).
• The first couple of articles describing Rhythmomachy: so far I have one on the basics, and one describing the first version of the game in detail. These letters have accompanying illustrations: one showing the board for the Third Variant, and one showing the form of the Kings.
• An article describing Merelles, AKA Nine Men's Morris, with a little accompanying picture.
• A description of Inn and Inn, a good dicing game from Cotton.
• A description of how to play the Tafl family of games, which were popular in northern Europe in the early Middle Ages.
• An account of false dice, based loosely on the book Mihil Mumchance.

Each chapter concludes with Endnotes, sometimes longer than the chapter itself, which are intended to help clarify the main text a bit.

I make no claim to any great expertise, especially in period English, so take all of this with a small grain of salt. But I've been having fun writing it, and I hope you have fun reading it...