Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/237

 and Se?2ti??je?2ts. 2 1 7 tranllation of Jacobus de Ceflblis (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), the dice-player appears to hold but two dice in his hand ; but this is to be laid folely to the charge of the draughtfman's want of lliill, as the text tells us dif- tinftly that he has three. We learn alfo from the text, that in the jug he holds in his right hand he carries his money, a late example of the ufe of earthen vellels for this purpofe. Two dice were, however, fome- times ufed, efpecially in the game of hazard, which appears to have been the great gambling game of the middle ages. Chaucer, in the " Par- doneres Tale," defcribes the hazardours as playing with two dice. But in the curious fcene in the " Towneley Myfteries" (p. 241), a work apparently contemporary with Chaucer, the tormentors, or executioners, are introduced throwing for Chrill's unfeamed garment with three dice ; the winner throws fifteen points, which could only be thrown with that number of dice. It would not feem eafy to give much ornamentation to the form of dice without deftroying their utility, yet this has been attempted at various times, and not only in a very grotefque but in a fimilar manner at very diftant periods. This was done by giving the die the form of a man, fo doubled up, that when thrown he fell in different pofitions, fo as to (how the points uppermoft, like an ordinary die. The fmaller example reprefented in our cut No. 152 is Roman, and made of filver, and feveral ^, ^ r ^°- 15^- Ornamental Dice. Roman dice 01 the lame form are known. It is Angular that the fame idea fliould have prefented itfelf at a much later period, and, as far as we can judge, without any room for fuppofing that it was by imitation. Our fecond example, which is larger than the other, and carved in box-wood, is of German work, and appa- rently as old as the beginning of the fixteenth century. Both are now in the fine and extenfive colledion of the late lord Londefborough. The fimple throwing of the dice was rather an excitement than an amufement ; and at an early period people fought the latter by a com- bination of the dice-throwing with fome other fylkmi of movements or calculations.