Ludus Anglicorum
14th-century board game
Ludus Anglicorum, also called the English Game, is an historical English tables game for two players using a board similar to that used today for Backgammon and other games. It is a "strategic game for serious game-players" and was well known in the Middle Ages. At one time it was considered the most popular tables game in England.
History
The English Game or Long Game is described in detail in a 14th century manuscript written in Latin and Anglo-Norman French, which is held in the British Museum. It was said to be the most popular tables game in the mediaeval England of Chaucer's time.
The English Game bears close similarity to the game of Emperador listed by King Alfonso X of Castile in his Libro de los Juegos ("Book of Games") published in 1278.
It may have been the game frequently referred to simply as 'Tables'. It appears to have evolved into Ticktack and Irish which had both superseded it by the 17th century.
Players and equipment
The English Game was a game for two players using three dice and 15 men apiece, and played on a tables board (see illustration) with 12 playing positions or points on each side. The four quadrants of the board are known as 'tables', a player's home table being the first six points on his side including the starting or home point; and a player's bearing table being the final and opposite quadrant, where the opponent starts.
“Ludus Anglicorum” enters the record as 14th-century board game. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ludus, Anglicorum and 14th-century can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110064471. The first chronological checks are 1278.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ludus Anglicorum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.