Not one poetry oracle, but distinct machines of chance

Ragemon le bon · Digby 86

Anglo-Norman tradition; Digby 86 witness · Bodleian MS Digby 86, ff. 162rb–163vb

Mechanics: 50 fortune quatrains; the exact Digby 86 selection procedure is not asserted

Corpus: Wright 1844: 50/50 quatrains and 200 lines remain an edition/OCR layer; Digby 86 ff. 162r–163v (indices 331–334) are now directly admitted and bound to IIIF/hash provenance. All four previously flagged OCR anomalies are manuscript-adjudicated (^eo→ceo, 960→ceo, ta arnie→ta amie, fotez confirmed), while the full 200-line diplomatic layer and exact Digby procedure remain open

The later English string ritual may not be backfilled into Digby 86 as a proven fact.

Ragman Rolle · Fairfax 16

Middle English tradition · Bodleian MS Fairfax 16

Mechanics: a hidden string-to-stanza binding; the participant draws one string

Corpus: Hazlitt/Fairfax-collated edition: 3 introductory + 23 outcome stanzas are admitted. Fairfax 16 fol. 47r and Bodley 638 fol. 214v both directly confirm the Drawith a strynge core; all 26 stanzas are page-routed across both witnesses. The full line-by-line diplomatic apparatus remains open

Drawing a string is directly attested, but an exact surviving roll, seal, or attachment construction is not. A digital session must commit the hidden mapping before the participant chooses and must not present a reconstructed material object as a facsimile.

POETIC_LOT_RAGMAN_HIDDEN_STRING_MAPPING_V1

The Chaunce of the Dyse

early fifteenth century · Fairfax 16 / Bodley 638 witness family

Mechanics: three d6 → 216 physical throws → 56 unordered fortune keys

Corpus: Hammond 1925: all 56 fortune stanzas are present as an edition text layer; Fairfax 16 ff. 148v–154r binds all 56 dice-key positions; Bodley 638 ff. 195r–203v is now directly admitted (18 source-bound images), 20 printed Hammond variant loci are indexed, and the Bodley lacuna at lines 295–336 is bound to stanzas 43–48 / keys 441, 433, 432, 431, 422, 421. Digital Bodleian also catalogues Stow marginalia on Fairfax fol. 149r, which carries keys 661, 655, 654, 653, 652; this is bound only at folio level. The full diplomatic apparatus and exact line-level Fairfax original-hand versus Stow map remain open

The 56 outcomes are not equiprobable: three real d6 are thrown first, then normalized only for lookup.

POETIC_LOT_CHAUNCE_THREE_D6_V1

Jeu d'amour

late thirteenth–early fourteenth century · a unique medieval tradition described by the critical edition

Mechanics: dice → medallion → four/six-line love pronostic

Corpus: 1062 lines are registered from the edition evidence; the source tradition has repeated dice combinations with multiple distinct pronostics, while the exact series-selection rule and full corpus remain open

The Chaunce map may not be borrowed, repeated combinations may not be collapsed to one pronostic, and the missing series-selection rule may not be invented from the user question, semantics, or AI.