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Colleagues on the REED Listserve: Many thanks for the comments received. My advice to the class matched the responses I received, that the storytelling competition is a rhetorical one, involving skill, whereas gambling has a large component of probability, or chance, not dependent on persuasive powers. My students, formerly unconvinced, now have the weight of academic authority before them. I have also sent them references on gambling from Benson's notes. On the other hand, in medieval law, trial by combat was also dependent on skill, but the outcome was believed to include divine aid, in favor of the innocent. Was "chance" really chance in medieval thought? Was the outcome of a game of skill potentially influenced by divine will, through recognition of the virtue, perhaps combined with the skill, of the contestant? However, I do not want to plague this listserve, which is for drama, with endless philosophical and theological/rhetorical problems. Thanks again for your thoughtful guidance--I will follow up on these matters separately in my reading and research. You have all given me much to consider. Elza C. Tiner Professor of English School of Humanities and Social Sciences Lynchburg College Lynchburg, VA 24501 USA ----- Original Message ----- From: Tiner, <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Elza To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 8:49 PM Subject: Definition of Gambling 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