Seventeenth Century Living History Society
Games
During the seventeenth century there were a multitude of games that could have been played for entertainment. There were various types of table to games including dice, card and board games.
Playing cards of the seventeenth century were very similar to those which we have today, the only major difference is that the number was not printed in the corner, only the symbols. Some packs of cards still retained traditional symbols such as bells and nuts. Many modern card games can been seem to have their history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, albeit with slight variations.
Dice games could be played with varying numbers of dice, and usually focus on either rolling pairs, or achieving certain scores. During the seventeenth century people and typically soldiers would have gambled upon the outcome of such games.
There were also a number of board or table games played which included nine mans morris, fox and geese and shove groat. More complex board games were played using squared boards. These ranged 5 x5 to 21x21 square boards and play was based on defence and attack. Alquerque was a popular version of this that later was superseded by draughts.
Various field games would also have been played including stool ball, an early variation of cricket, skittles and slap cock, an early version of badmington.
Picture copyright -top -NTG Partrick 2008,
bottom wardour garrison 2010