Bible Dicing

[petal]

Bible Dicing

Reverend Dr. Robert Wilde, 1615-1679

Robert Wilde must have been familiar with Oliver Cromwell as both maintained extreme Puritan views. In addition to the accomplishment of a Doctorate in Divinity Robert seemed to have been a poet of some note;


Sonnet ~ To the Mocking-Bird
Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool!
Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe?
Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule
Pursue thy fellows still with jest and jibe:
Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe;
Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school;
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,
Arch-mocker and mad abbot of misrule!


The 17th century language seems a little odd today but it is not for his poetry that Robert Wilde is remembered.
It is recorded in verse (anon) that Robert died from asthma but it was also recorded in his Will the bequest of a sum of money to provide a dozen Bibles, six for the boys and six for the girls, each year to be cast for by dice on the Communion table. It was Dr Wilde’s intention to show that the word was in the Bible and not in the pomp and circumstance that went on within some branches of the Church at that time.
Even today, gambling in Church is not something that occurs very often and time has varied Robert Wilde’s intent, only so much as they don’t throw the dice on the communion table anymore but every Whitsun the “Dicing for Bibles” still takes place in St Ives.
Whitsun is another name for Pentecost and that happens fifty days after Easter, hence 'Pentecost' which means 'fifty'. As Easter moves around the calendar so does Whitsun following Easter seven weeks later, and this is when Bible Dicing occurs