ABSTRACT
Rithmomachia is a mathematical game invented in the 11th century. As a board game it competed for a long time with chess and was at some times more popular. Medieval authors said that the inventor of the game was Pythagoras, Boethius or Gerbert. Research into the history of Rithmomachia began with the articles of Peiper, 'Fortolfi Rythmimachia' and Wappler, 'Bemerkungen'. A short and easy introduction to the game was written by Smith and Eaton, 'Rithmomachia'; they relied mainly on early printed sources. All mathematical elements of rithmomachia go back to the Pythagorean theory of numbers as is to be found in Nicomachus. Rithmomachia made it possible to learn, by playing, the arithmetic that normally had to be learnt the hard way in the cathedral and monastic schools as part of the quadrivium.
