GLUCKHAUS “GASTON” BOARD

March 2016

HL Adrianna the Fierce

(aka Deunan Berkeley)

DeunanB@gmail.com

SUMMARY

This project was created to make a Gluckhaus game board, the "House of Luck/Fortune," in the decorated theme of Gaston Phebus' Book of Hunting. I really enjoy playing this game and I wanted to incorporate the Book of Hunting into the art.

The challenges:

1. Imitating the art style of Gaston Phebus' Book of Hunting

2. Researching Gluckhaus - limited information

3. Keeping people from damaging it as it was played during the creation process

4. Free hand technique for the straight lines

5. My eyes are getting worse; it’s getting harder for me to focus up close with contacts in

This is a German pub game rumored to be from the 1300’s, with an extant board or two from 1583. The art chosen for this particular project is Gaston Phebus’ Book of Hunting from the year 1387. This is plausible, because sometimes in medieval art, they imitate something historical to them.

The initial board was started in 2008, then left unfinished until March 2016, where all the details were completed in two weeks. This is an example of how the four years in art school increased my training (which I also work on every day). There are approximately 120 work hours into the board’s decoration and another 30 hours of research. (It used to take me 1000 or more hours to do one of these!)

HISTORICAL BASIS (BASED ON)

The correct spelling of the German word for luck is "gluck." The German word "haus" means "house." This translates to Luck House or House of Luck. Also known as House of Fortune.

The amount of information on this game is extremely limited to a few extant pieces and a few minor mentions. There are a lot of rumors. Essentially, this appears to be a pub game, played with a board and two six-sided die, existing in Germany. That much is fact. Exactly when it was introduced is still a mystery.

Cunnan’s website claims that it was first mentioned in sermons in the 13th and 14th century. I am tracing this hint but do not have conclusive proof yet.

In some cases, as reported on websites about it, it was chalked onto the pub’s tables and then dice and coins were used. Apparently some fancy versions of it were made, which is the pattern across all of Europe for nearly all games. However, I am informed by Alan Winston and other game forums that the Nazi regime banned this pub game. We also know from various documentary shows, such as “Monuments Men” that they seized, moved, and sometimes destroyed art. The games would be classified as art if they were fancy enough, especially if they had gold, silver, and precious stones (like other samples at the same era). Resulting in a very difficult historical record.

POSSIBLE THEORY OF ANCESTRY OF GAME

There is an interesting theory put forth by Alan Winston, of Seattle, WA, a game enthusiast and researcher, that early Gluckhaus games may be derived from a game prior to that called PINKE. Pinke has a simpler rectangular layout and uses two conventional six-sided dice. It is acceptable to chalk it onto a table.

Note: Glaukhaus, House of Fortune, is not mentioned in H.J.R. Murray’s “A History of Board Games Other Than Chess.” It seems that Murray did not document many pub games (if any). This means it was not duplicated out and plagiarized into RC Bell or the other imitators later on.

EXTANT PIECES

Beyond a doubt, the game existed, because we have two extant pieces I have found so far.

Painted wood Gluckhaus, 1583, Bavarian National Museum: Beech wood painted with tempura

This is a Gluckhaus board from 1583, painted wood, currently in the Bavarian National Museum, Austrian in origination. It is the most well-known example of Gluckhaus today, although not the only one. You can see the date painted on the bottom of the "house" shape, and instead of numbers, letters are painted in the boxes. These letters represent the German words for the characters in those spots in the “house.”

K – Konig, or King

S = Schwein, or pig

H= Hochzeit, or wedding

ST = Saufedern, or sow’s feathers (the lances)

(This information courtesy pg 140-141 in Games of the World book.)

This picture is lightened up a bit from the dark appearance of the board today.

Gluckhaus Example two, possibly 1550 or later.

This is another example of a Gluckhaus board, with a few stylistic changes to the "house" shape and a card-playing theme. I am still tracking down the source of this image.

The shield shapes suggest this is also 1550 or later in nature.

HISTORICAL BASIS FOR PAINTING A GAME BOARD

You can see that the artisans in period were using the base layout, the "house" layout, and decorating around it with whatever theme they wanted (cards in one case, happy fortunate people in another). This concept of decorating around the game's basic component grid has a long, long history. The Romans had to change their grids for Duodecim Scripta, from squares to words, to avoid prosecution for gambling. In classic Roman fashion, they used short poetry that was sometimes very tart or rude. There is an inventory reference for the Black Prince of England, showing he owned a Fox and Geese set with gold and silver fox and geese pieces - and you can bet that board wasn't plain, undecorated wood.

This is a 15th century ivory bone box, made to hold game pieces. It has a hunting theme on it, including scenes around the edges of the actual hunt, and the peacock and traps on the lid.

Tric Trac board, Bavarian National Museum, ivory, pearl, rare stone.

Another example from the Bavarian National Museum, all inlay of ivory, mother of pearl, and rare stone. This is three games in one; tables on the inside and other games on the lid and the bottom. Estimated date, 1550 or so.

They would carve it, inlay it, gild it, paint it, do about everything they could to have THE fanciest version of their favorite game in their noble household. This particular game was seen in pubs but if it caught the fancy of a noble, they could presumably had a fancy version made - just like the one in the museum today.

This adorable three-game board was spotted in the London museum by an SCA friend, made entirely of actual amber (with solid silver hinges and edge brackets). The pieces are amber, too. Still checking for date, size, and origin.

The point is, if they can afford to make it fancy, they make it as fancy as possible. This seems to be the existing fancy scale:

1. Bare wood. (Poor, or made quick)

2. Engraved shape on the wood (also poor, made quickly)

3. Wood scraped, gesso'd, and painted with intricate patterns, characters, and a theme - midgrade noble, would have to hire an artisan to get the wood and another to paint it.

4. Inlaid wood with special materials, gold, silver - high-end noble, with money for mutliple artisans

5. Board made entirely from precious materials - royalty

GASTON PHEBUS CONTENT

The point of the content of this decoration for this particular version of Gluckhaus is to show the illustrations and styles inspired by the famous Book of Hunting by Gaston Foix, known as Gaston Phebus, from 1331. A huge fan of hunting, he dictated a wonderful book showing different methods for training hunters and dogs, all the different prey, and a huge variety of techniques and traps.

The King in 12 was replaced with the Master of the Hunt. The wedding in 7 was moved to a forest; and the pig in 2 was changed to a wild boar. The other images in the other squares do not appear to be tied to the game, so they were changed to match various hunting subjects while hinting at the previous subjects in extant versions of the board.

The white stag/reindeer is a tip of the hat to my previous game company efforts, White Stag Games.

The board's layout was traditionally a house shape but in this case, was changed to represent the traps and scenes out in the woods. Excessive diapering was added to match the original Gaston illustrations.

Hunting a boar, from Gaston Phebus

Caring for the hounds, Gaston Phebus

The illustrations in Gaston's book are extremely difficult to replicate as even a single tree uses over fourteen shades of green and three shades of tan, minimum. The illustrations are also large – each page in the book was about 11” x 16”. They had deep borders of parchment, but this is not a tiny book of hours!

The book was immensely popular, judging by the fact that over 40 copies nearly survived to today. One copy was taken apart carefully for preservation and provided us the scans for the book about Gaston Phebus and his Book of the Hunt.

TOOLS AND MATERIALS

I have worked on painted game boards since 1998 or so. My first efforts showed the wood grain between the painted elements, which I realized with further research is not the preference of medieval people. Modern people like to see the wood but medieval people do not.

I started collecting books and research on the subject, and started teaching classes on it. I do both a lecture and a workshop. In the workshop, every student gets a plank and paint, and a grid to copy onto the board, and by the end of the class,

they are working on a game that they have learned. It’s a gateway to painting charters and scrolls, as well. Best of all, it helped spread the word that there are hundreds of medieval and ancient games out there.

Game workshop in full swing. They are playing Alquerque with chocolate.

Since I started game boards so long ago, I’ve branched out into embellishing other items as well, such as painted trunks, painted boxes, painted shields, painted marshalling sticks and more.

TOOLS NEEDED TO PAINT A GAMEBOARD:

- Brushes, some as small as 20/0

- Paint

- Lacquer or protective coat

- Tracing paper to transfer design to wood

- Gesso to prep wood surface

- Paper to do prelimary sketches

- Rulers

- Wood plank or flat surface to paint

- Sandpaper, medium and fine grit

Medieval Games Research books of mine

WOOD

I used to go to the wood store and just buy a piece of fir or something. It would be ripcut to size, which created a terrible frayed edge. I’ve learned my lesson. I am now experimenting with pre-bought plaques, finer grain woods that don’t shred when cut, even pre-bevelled boards. In period, the artist would go to a woodworker to get the base unit for the project, made from poplar, pear wood, maple, oak, or other European hardwood.

This plaque is pine, with beveled edges. I bought it shaped like that, then sanded it, and covered it in gesso.

PAINT

The most likely period paints for this project would be

- Sennelier egg tempera, French formula

- Winsor and Newton Goache

- modern acrylic paint

Egg tempura is wonderful stuff, it keeps curing the longer it is exposed to oxygen. It gets more and more saturated over the course of about five to ten years, until it is nearly neon, and then starts to fade back down to de-sat colors, a process arrested by a good gloss coat.

However, it is about twelve dollars for a small tube, and the paint does not store on the shelf very long, due to the unstable egg content. This makes it hard to acquire and use for big projects.

Winsor and Newton Goache, also very expensive, and soaks up into wood, making a tiny tube that would last about fifty scrolls instead last about five minutes. Also not practical.

That leaves modern acrylic, of which I have a huge leftover stock gifted to me. Acrylic dries too fast, so you need to keep the colors wet every five to ten minutes; it does not blend together on the surface easily as a result, and it does not change color in a predictable way in sunlight over a long period of time (some colors are not lightfast at all). However, for a waterproof indoor pub game, it’ll be fine.

FINISH/PROTECTIVE COAT

Period glosses, such as beeswax and spar urethane are being replaced by the polycrylic lacquer, which is cleaner, cleans up with water, and seals the board without stickiness or stinkiness. This is a pub game and needs to be 100 percent waterproof.

I discovered that spar urethane discolors in sunlight sometimes, and the spray finishes, like Krylon and the like, will take the shine out of the metallic finishes. You have to be careful brushing on the polycrylic as it can “lift” the metallic finish off the board!

OTHER MATERIALS

For the sake of regular play, I have regular six-sided commercially made modern dice from Chessex. For the point of showing off a noble’s board, I have a special pair of dice made from solid amber. This is in keeping with what a noble would do to impress the other nobles. I bought the dice, I don’t work amber.

COINS

This is a gambling game and the primary pieces are coins. I don’t use my own money because I tend to lose it! People also don’t walk around events with enough coin in their pouches. I carry a healthy supply of edible alternatives, such as chocolate coins, chocolate kisses, or the like.

In period, this game dates to about 1583 for the extant example, in southern Germany. Those coins would be:

- Pfennig (penny)- 1 and 2- Pfennig coincs- Half a Groschen (5 pfennig coin)- Groschen (10 pfennig coin)

In other languages, there’s the Sechser (English sixpence), fening (Bosnia), penning (Sweden), penni (Finland), and denier (France).

These are holhpfennigs from Albrecht VII, about 1486-1526.

These are pfennigs from lower Bavaria, about 1390, Duke Heinrich IV.

These pfennigs are Duke Ludwig IX, 1450.

This is a German gold piece from 1461, called goldgulden.

In the 8th century, Charlemagne declared that 240 pfennigs should be minted from a pound (c.408 grams) of silver. A single coin had the mass of 1.7 grams after the coinage reform of 790. Sometimes pieces were broken off.

I would love to have enough money (current currency) to pay our An Tir Moneyer’s Guild to strike me some period German coins for this project. However, you need approximately 25 coins per person with three people recommended, so 75 coins is a lot. We’ll stick with the chocolate for now.

DICE

Dice could be made from stone, ivory, clay, bone, wood, horn, antler, metal, or other materials. The look of die have not changed much through the years. This game requires two six-sided die.

Early to middle period dice.

PROCEDURE

My process echoes the classic preparation of a panel process mentioned in Cennini.

STEPS TO PAINTING DESIGNS ON A WOOD BOARD:

1. Acquire the wood and measure it. To be period, the designs need to have at least two borders, and all the spaces need clear borders as well.

2. Lightly sand the surface. Use fine grit paper.

3. Apply gesso, and resand afterwards. Repeat 3 times.

4. Create a paper life-size cartoon of the design to be on the board.

5. Transfer the life-size cartoon to the gesso surface (unless you need white paint on there first).

6. Paint the layers and block in the major areas first.

7. Once painting is complete, seal with a lacquer, dip, or spray.

SUBSTITUTIONS

Wood Bought it intact In period, would be bought or worked with inlay

Type of wood Fir Poplar, maple, pear wood: too expensive at the time

Paint Acrylic In period, Sennelier egg tempura or goauche

Lacquer Polycrylic In period, spar urethane or beeswax formula

Brushes Bought intact Not enough time and dead animals to make my own

Gesso Bought premade Saving time

DETAILS ON PROCEDURE

I studied the extant pictures closely and the modern extrapolations, played the game, and made a few versions before this of the game. My challenges this time were to make it smaller. All the details, everything would be smaller. I also had shelved this project for years – so the “plan” for what exact diapering or colors was going where was lost. It’s still based on the same book, of course, but there are over 90 pages in the Gaston Phebus book and only 11 spaces.

My biggest changes this time was that I was “hotmixing.” I was mixing the acrylic paint with multiple colors every time I touched the board, or I was mixing custom colors in my palette. I avoided out of the tube colors as much as possible, with the exception of the ultramarine blue in the background I’d put down in 2008. It would be the “core” color for the new palette, cool dominating, hot colors for focal points, excessive gold accents, and a dark key.

I had to use 10/0, 20/0 and toothpicks to get the detail in. My eyes wouldn’t recognize detail with my contacts in, so I took them out and put my nose near the board, and then I could see all the tiny details! Unfortunately, you can’t back up and check your art when you’re blind, so some of the background diapering behind the horse and the goat got a little warped.

I was also attacked by cats. My cats got jealous of all those hours of sitting there and not paying attention to them. Several times one leaped to my shoulders, causing me to panic. I eventually figured out how to listen for them coming and lift the brush.

On the left, at the end of 2008. On the right, two weeks of March 2016 have changed it forever.

HOW TO PLAY

Gluckhaus is a great gambling game. Each player puts a coin on the wedding (7) to start, because you always leave a gift for the wedding.

Players take turns rolling the two 6-sided dice. You get one roll each.

If there is no coin on the space rolled, you leave a coin.

If there is a coin on the space you rolled, you take it.

Exceptions:

Roll a 7 = Always leave a gift for the wedding. This space gets stacks of gifts.

Roll a 2 – Lucky Pig. Get coins from all the spots EXCEPT the wedding.

Roll a 12 – King’s tax, take every coin off the board, including the wedding.

Most boards do not have a 4 spot. In gambling situations, it was customary that 4 was the house number, meaning the player would pay a coin to the owner of the board. It can also be skipped.

Player can enter or leave the game at any time. If you run out of coins, you’ve “lost.”

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME

I do love how fun this game is, how many people love to play it. I think I need a bigger board to provide a bigger Wedding square. I’d get the coin size first, then make a square large enough, then base the board on that.

I might pick a different theme too. And see if I can find those sermon references.

If it gets bigger than 20,” I want to make a big carrier so it can be safely transported to events.

SOURCES

The following books, game forums, websites, and museums were combed for information on this game. If you find information on this game, please email it to DeunanB@gmail.com.

PRIMARY

Primary sources include extant examples, photos of extant examples, or museum replicas.

Games of the World: How to Make Them, How to Play Them, How They Came to Be

By Frederic V. Grunfeld (RC Bell involved), Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. 1975. ISBN 0-03-015261-5.

Why: One of the few mentions of Glaukhaus, it shows the 1583 extant board and explains the letters on the board and how they correspond with German item names.

Spiele Und Spielzeug In Der Antike: Unterhaltung Und Vergnugen Im Altertum (Games and Toys in Ancient Times: Entertainment and Pleasure in Antiquity)

By Marco Fitta, Leonardo Arte, Milano, 1997. ISBN 3-8062-1370-4.

Why: Excellent reference for dice, page 111 for example. Mostly ancient games, excellent references. Only in German.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Secondary sources are sources such as scholars discussing the game or the way it was made or played.

The Craftsman's Handbook, "Il Libro Dell'Arte"

By Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, translated by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr., Dover Publications, New York, 1960. ISBN 486-20054-X

Why: Period paint explanations, lacquer explanations, and the best line ever... to mix blue (which has toxic stuff in it), "take your least favorite apprentice..."

The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting

By Daniel V. Thompson, Dover Publications, New York, reprint of the 1956 edition. ISBN 0-486-20327-1

Why: Not only did he translate Cennini, but he understands broader aspects of how their designs were applied and tricks of the trade.

Indoor Games or How to While Away A Siege

The Compleat Anachronist, SCA, No. 4, January 1983.

Why: First spotted mention of Glaukhaus, although the picture shown is re-drawn (not the original picture) and lacking some details, and the rules are from another game book. This was the first reference that started it all.

OTHER SOURCES

Bavarian Natural Museum, images and information on extant boards

http://www.bayerisches-nationalmuseum.de/index.php?id=1&L=1

Internet: Dagonell the Juggler, SCA, article on Gluckhaus

Alan Winston, Seattle, hist-games: Gluckhaus, Oct. 5, 2002

Article on Cunnan, pulled 3.1.2016, Gluckhaus, all ref links are dead, info taken as rumor

http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Gluckhaus

This document authored by Deunan Berkeley (aka Adrianna the Fierce in the SCA) in March 2016. For suggestions, corrections, or other information, email DeunanB@gmail.com.