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Colleagues on the REED Listserve:

Where would I find a good definition of forms of gambling in the fourteenth century?  My students have raised a question about the Canterbury Tales, that is, the storytelling competition, in which the pilgrims are competing for a prize, resulting in all the others having to pay for the winner's meal at the Tabard, as a form of gambling.  While the storytelling competition is a game, would it have been considered a form of gambling?  

When I looked up gamble in the OED, I did not see a form of this word from the 14th century, though game, its possible predecessor, goes back that far.  In notes to the Pardoner's Tale, where gambling is mentioned, Larry Benson describes the game of hazard, with dice, as a game of chance (909).  However, is a storytelling competition also a game of chance--does such a connection turn up in any REED accounts?  

Many thanks for your thoughts on this matter. 

Elza C. Tiner
Professor of English
School of Humanities and Social Sciences