Wibold's Ludus Regularis, a 10th Century Board Game - Possible Game Boards

Author(s): 
Richard Pulskamp (Xavier University) and Daniel Otero (Xavier University)

Possible Game Boards

Besides the circular game board in Figure 6, proposed for a simplified version of Ludus Regularis by Balderic's editor, George Colvener, in 1615 [2], we display two rectangular boards. First, we repeat Table 1, Wibold's Table of Virtues, with our English translation of virtues added, for easy reference.

Table 1. Wibold's Table of Virtues, with English translation of virtues added


A game board for Ludus regularis might have included the virtues in the order in which they appear in Table 1, arranged around the outside of a rectangular board, as in Table 5, below. A similar game board was proposed by Colvener [2].

Table 5. Conjectural game board emphasizing order, modeled on a game board proposed by Colvener [2]


Table 6 shows a possible game board with the virtues ordered with respect to the sum of the dice, but with virtues paired with their complements, as discussed in the earlier section, "Game Play."

Table 6. An alternative game board emphasizing symmetries, proposed by the authors