My medieval board game recently appeared in the Bodleian Library’s Redesigning the medieval book exhibition, and will soon be making a further appearance at the University of the West of England in Bristol – at the Bower Ashton Library from 19 April – 29 June.
The project started with a workshop at the Bodleian back in February 2017, where a group of artists were introduced to many of the wonderful manuscripts that were to appear in the Bodleian’s Designing English exhibition. We were then invited to “reimagine” one of these books in whatever way we chose. Winning entries were then displayed alongside the main exhibition.
My artwork is based on this manuscript, which explains what thunder portends in each month of the year (anything from abundant crops to the fall of the state, depending on the month), each prediction illustrated with emoji-like symbols. Here is my copy and translation of the manuscript:
I thought that this book would work well as a board game, that would allow players to experience the vicissitudes of the medieval year, and that would let me make lots of decorative cards and tiles. I admit that I was massively influenced by the popular farming strategy board game Agricola. However, my board game is completely different, as my keen boardgaming friends will affirm, in that it is entirely luck-based and has absolutely none of Agricola’s strategic interest.
In my game, a dial moves round the board indicating which month it is. Players throw a dice (the “thunderdice”) to see if it thunders for them. If it thunders, they take a card for the appropriate month, which instructs them to gain or lose tokens representing health, food, trees, or pigs. The aim of the game is not to die! If both players survive until the end of the year (not a given), then the winner if the one who has the most food for their Christmas dinner at the end of December.
Here are the cards and the tokens (all individually handmade):
The board is really just a tracker, to indicate which month you are in at any point. However, it’s elaborately decorated with pictures representing the traditional labours and signs of the zodiac for each month. These are copied from another amazing manuscript in the same collection as the thunder prediction one. Here’s the board and the seasonal labour for December (i.e. feasting) – note the gold leaf!
To my great pleasure, the board game was one of the artworks chosen to appear in the Bodleian exhibition, along with many other excellent reinterpretations (though no other board games).
Here’s me excitedly explaining how to survive the medieval year to some bemused guests at the Bodleian’s “Library Lates” event (photo by Ian Wallman):
