Anyone who studies historical games should own a copy of this book. Written by H. J. R. Murray and published in1952, A History of Board Games other than Chess contains detailed information on six different types of Ancient and Medieval Board games. Although his previous work, A History of Chess was recognized as the standard reference on the subject, its scholarly approach and great length (900 pages) made it inaccessible to most chess players. Murray began a shorter work on chess history written in a more popular style; it remained unfinished at his death and was completed by B. Goulding Brown and Harry Golombek and published in 1963 as A Short History of Chess.
Harold James Ruthven Murray
Harold James Ruthven Murray (24 June 1868 – 16 May 1955) was a British educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. His book, A History of Chess, is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive history of the game.
Murray, the eldest of eleven children, was born near Peckham Rye in Peckham, London. The son of Sir James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, he attended school at Mill Hill and, in his spare time, helped his father produce the first edition of the OED. By the time Harold had finished school and was preparing to leave for university, he had produced over 27,000 quotations that later appeared in the OED.
He won a place at Balliol College, Oxford where in 1890 he graduated with a first class degree in Mathematics. He became an assistant master at Queen’s College, Taunton where he learned to play chess.
Kemari Ball game at outer Edo Castle (Private Collection)
The first evidence of Kemari is from 644 CE. The rules were standardized in the 13th century. The game was influenced by the Chinese sport of Cuju (the earliest form of football). The kanji characters for Kemari are the same as Cuju in Chinese. The sport was introduced to Japan about 600, during the Asuka period. Nowadays, it is played in Shinto Shrines for festivals.
Kemari is a non-competitive sport. The object of Kemari is to keep one ball in the air with all players cooperating to do so. Players may use any body part with the exception of arms and hands – their head, feet, knees, back, and depending on the rules, elbows to keep the ball aloft. The ball, known as a mari, is made of deerskin with the hair facing inside and the hide on the outside. The ball is stuffed with barley grains to give it shape. When the hide has set in this shape, the grains are removed from the ball, and it is then sewn together using the skin of a horse. The one who kicks the ball is called a mariashi. A good mariashi makes it easy for the receiver to control the mari, and serves it with a soft touch to make it easy to keep the mari in the air.
Kemari is played on a flat ground, about 6–7 meters square. Traditionally players wear clothes called Kariginu, a style popular in the Asuka period.
One of the more famous pastimes of the Japanese nobility was a class of pastimes called “awase,” meaning “matchings” or “joinings.” There were uta-awase (poetry competitions), e-awase (picture comparisons), etc. With many of these, it was an actual comparison, a judging of one like item against another, the selection of the better of the two (or three or four or…) being determined by any number of factors pointing to the artistic and aesthetic sensibilities of the person or persons making the judgment.
Sometimes, however, it wasn’t so much awase “matching” but literally awase “joining” that was being done. This is the case with the famous kai-awase, or shell-joining.
Kai-Awase originated in the mid Heian era (794-1185) and comes into full development by the 12th century. In the early years of the game, you would accumulate a set of shells and play them with one to four people, usually kneeling upon a mat, or next to a low table to play them. By the end of the 12th century the full game set consisted of 360 painted clam shells all are about the same size (some two and a half to three inches across)
Each pair of shells bears the same image. The sources for these images are poetic, seasonal, literary, etc., and depict everything from flowers to noblemen peeking into a room to items of dance costume. The inside of the shells are first cleaned of all matter, then it is gilded and painted. Only the outside of the shell retains its natural look.
Kai-Awase Shells for the Edo Period (1615 – 1868)
The shells are kept in a box called a kaioke, which is usually multi-tiered (or has separate trays suspended inside the single chest). Early kaioke were typically octagonal and elaborately decorated with makie or brocade-style painting, while later models were more tub-like and simply decorated and often bore the crest of the owner. Owing to the aristocratic nature of the game, by the Edo period such chests with the shells inside were commonly among the items in a wealthy or aristocratic woman’s trousseau.
At right are examples of the older style (which I classify as “kuge style”) and one of the later models (which, by their popularity among the warrior aristocracy, I call “buke style”).
Playing the game of kai-awase
If the game is one using poetic texts, each shell would bear half of the poem. If the game is one using only pictures, then each shell would bear similar images, or half of an image to be joined with another.
Kai-Awase Shells with matching picture, Edo Period, Image courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of NY
The left (male) shell is called the jigai (ground shell) and the right (female) shell is called the degai (out shell). One at a time, the degai is taken from the box, and its matching half is sought from amongst the jigai spread out on the floor. The winner is the person who collects most matching pairs. It sounds a bit over simplistic, however, as given enough time I can’t imagine anyone not finding the matching shell. Unless, of course, the shells are spread out image down, which most explanations of the rules fail to specify.
A variation which I cannot be certain that they played, but which to me makes great sense, is a variation on the old game “Concentration.” All the shells are laid out face down, and players take turns flipping pairs, until they find a matching pair, which they can then claim. Unmatched pairs are turned back over. As with the official rules, the winner is the person with the most matching shell pairs when the game is over.
Club Kayles as illustrated in a 14th Century Manuscript
The game of Club Kayles or Stick-Throwing began in 1100 and ended around 1541 when it was finally banned by royal decree. It consisted of 6 to 8 pins evenly placed in a line which were then attempted to be knock down by throwing a stick from a specified distance, usually 30′. At some point a King-Pin was introduced which was placed on the left side of the line for right handed throwers, and the right side of the line for left handed throwers. The significance of the King-Pin in Club Kayles is not known, but in some versions of Lawn Bowling the King Pin must be knocked down before all the other toppled pins can be scored. The Game takes it name from French quilles, the word from which ‘skittles’ itself is also derived. In Old French, Club Kayles is le jeu de quilles a baston.
The game of Club Kayles bears a striking resemblance to the modern Scandinavian game known as Kubb. It is often claimed that the Kubb dates back to the Viking Age and has survived since then on the Swedish island of Gotland, although there is no evidence of this. The Föreningen Gutnisk Idrott (Society (of) Gotland Games), formed in 1912, does not list Kubb as one of the traditional games from Gotland. In Gotland it is called “Kägelkrig” (Skittles war) and is described as a variation of Skittles and played with a ball. The game in its modern conception became popular in the late 1980s when commercial Kubb sets were first manufactured.
Medieval People at Play 
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