Lot Books

History

Lot-books answer a question by chance and a table. In the Middle English Chance of the Dice (Bodleian MS Fairfax 16), each of the 56 throws of three dice has its stanza, which, Hammond judged, a leader probably read aloud after the throw. Cattan’s Geomancie (English 1591) ends with a Wheel of Pythagoras reckoned from a name, a day and a chosen number. The Dodechedron of Fortune (London, 1613), from the French Plaisant jeu du dodechedron de fortune, uses a twelve-sided die. The Book of Fortune (London, 1698) is Lorenzo Spirito’s book, first printed at Perugia in 1482, in English. The Book of Fate (1822), credited to “H. Kirchenhoffer”, claimed to be Napoleon’s oracle from an Egyptian tomb.

How it works

Each book is run as its print tells the reader. The throw, the strokes or the name go through the book’s own tables: the Dodechedron’s table of the twelve houses, the Book of Fortune’s kings, philosophers, wheels and astronomers, the Book of Fate’s fold-out of 32 questions and 32 signs. Every step names its page, and the answer is quoted as printed. A throw is random, or entered by hand from real dice.

How it was checked

Every text was transcribed from the page images, with the existing transcriptions and OCR used only to find differences. The tests run the prints’ own examples: the Dodechedron’s seventh house, fifth question and die eight to leaf 122, verse 8; Cattan’s Anthony to a remainder of fourteen; the Book of Fate’s rows of strokes to sign 20 and folio 14, and the preface’s consultations of Napoleon, all but one word for word. They check that each of the 56 throws of the Chance of the Dice has its stanza, that the Fate’s table is a Latin square in all 1,024 cells, and that every answer stands beside the stars of the sign that leads to it.

Limits

Where a print leaves a case open, the tool says so instead of deciding: Cattan’s wheel lacks 29 and does not say what a remainder of nothing means; his lover’s rule names no planet and is quoted, not run. Misprints are kept and named. The Book of Fate’s unnamed hieroglyphs are described in the tool’s own words. Nothing here is a prediction: these are the books’ answers, as printed.