till about the twelfth.  The annals of chivalry continually speak of the barons playing at these games, and especially at chess.  Historians also mention chess, and show that it was played with the same zest in the camp of the Saracens as in that of the Crusaders.  We must not be surprised if chess shared the prohibition laid upon dice, for those who were ignorant of its ingenious combinations ranked it amongst games of chance.  The Council of Paris, in 1212, therefore condemned chess for the same reasons as dice, and it was specially forbidden to church people, who had begun to make it their habitual pastime.  The royal edict of 1254 was equally unjust with regard to this game.  “We strictly forbid,” says Louis IX., “any person to play at dice, tables, or chess.”  This pious king set himself against these games, which he looked upon as inventions of the devil.  After the fatal day of Mansorah, in 1249, the King, who was still in Egypt with the remnants of his army, asked what his brother, the Comte d’Anjou, was doing.  “He was told,” says Joinville, “that he was playing at tables with his Royal Highness Gaultier de Nemours.  The King was highly incensed against his brother, and, though most feeble from the effects of his illness, went to him, and taking the dice and the tables, had them thrown into the sea.”  Nevertheless Louis IX. received as a present from the Vieux de la Montagne, chief of the Ismalians, a chessboard made of gold and rock crystal, the pieces being of precious metals beautifully worked.  It has been asserted, but incorrectly, that this chessboard was the one preserved in the Musee de Cluny, after having long formed part of the treasures of the Kings of France.

Amongst the games comprised under the name of tables, it is sufficient to mention that of draughts, which was formerly played with dice and with the same men as were used for chess; also the game of honchet, or jonchees, that is, bones or spillikins, games which required pieces or men in the same way as chess, but which required more quickness of hand than of intelligence; and epingles, or push-pin, which was played in a similar manner to the honchets, and was the great amusement of the small pages in the houses of the nobility.  When they had not epingles, honchets, or draughtsmen to play with, they used their fingers instead, and played a game which is still most popular amongst the Italian people, called the morra, and which was as much in vogue with the ancient Romans as it is among the modern Italians.  It consisted of suddenly raising as many fingers as had been shown by one’s adversary, and gave rise to a great amount of amusement among the players and lookers-on.  The games played by girls were, of course, different from those in use among boys.  The latter played at marbles, luettes, peg or humming tops, quoits, fouquet, merelles, and a number of other games, many of which are now unknown.  The girls, it is almost needless to say, from the earliest times played with dolls. Briche, a game in which a brick and a small stick was used, were also a favourite. Martiaus, or small quoits, wolf or fox, blind man’s buff, hide and seek, quoits, &c., were all girls’ games.  The greater part of these amusements were enlivened by a chorus, which all the girls sang together, or by dialogues sung or chanted in unison.