Early Chess (1100-1400)

 

Around 1100, the Persian writer Abul-Qasim ar-Raghib al-Isfahani  (1050-1108) wrote a treatise on the ethics of shatranj.  The treatise consists of a short introduction, a chapter on the meaning of shatranj, a chapter on the legality of the game, and a chapter on the covenant that the players must follow.  The treatise is now in the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the Lobachevsky Scientific Library in Kazan.  (source: Averbakh, p. 37) 

In 1101, Fulcher de Chatres (1059-1130) mention chess as a pastime.  This may be the first French reference to chess.  Fulcher wrote his chronicle of the Crusade Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Peregrinantium (A history of the expedition to Jerusalem) in three books.  He asked why did some of the pilgrims amused themselves with chess.  He recorded that Kerbogha was playing chess during the siege of Antioch.

In 1105, Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) wrote the Rubaiyat, using with chess references.

Around 1105, Petrus Alfonsi (1062-1125), a Spanish Jew (originally named Moses Sephardi) who converted to Christianity in 1106, wrote Disciplina Clericalis (Training School for the Clergy).  Here, he listed the seven knightly accomplishments as, “riding, swimming, archery, boxing, hawking, chess, and verse writing.”  The advice also was meant for the clerics.  (source: Eales, p. 53)

In 1106, Henry I (1068-1135) allowed his brother Robert Curthouse, Duke of Normandy, to play chess while imprisoned for 28 years. 

In 1107, French historian Robert de St. Remi wrote Hisotoria Iherosolimitana, a Latin history of the First Crusade.  He wrote that the crusaders “relied on chess as one of their diversions between battles.”

In 1107, a chess problem was represented in the mosaic floor in the Saint Savino Church in Piacenza. 

In 1112, the French Dauphin threw chess pieces at King Henry I after losing. 

Around 1115, the Benedictine Honorius Augustodunensis (1080-1140) justified chess-playing by classifying chess under “arithmetic,” as a science, and one of the seven liberal arts.  (source: Monte, p. 15)

Allegedly, around 1119, Henry I (1068-1135) of England played a chess game by correspondence against Louis VI (1081-1137) of France.  (source; Divinsky, p. 50)  King Henry II (1133-1189) also supposedly played chess. 

In 1125, Joannes (John) Zonaras, a former captain of the imperial guard turned monk, issued a directive from Mount Athos, Greece, banning chess (zatrikon) as a kind of debauchery.  (source: Golombek 1977, p. 52)

In 1128, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a French abbot, wrote his regulations for the Order of the Knights Templars (military orders).  He was the co-founder of the Knights Templars in 1118.  He cautioned that they “should abhor chess as much as dice.”  Cards and dice were shunned upon.  (source: Gizycki, p. 20) 

Around 1129, Fulcher of Chartes (1059-1200) wrote Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Peregrinantium (A history of the expedition to Jerusalem).  He wrote that the Crusaders played chess.  He also reported that when Peter the Hermit came to visit the Turkish General Karbuga during the siege of Antioch (1097-1098), the general was playing chess.  (source: Averbakh, p. 53) 

In 1130, draughts, a variant of chess, was invented in the south of France using backgammon pieces. 

Around 1130, chess arrived in Poland.  Polish knights returning from the Crusades, brought it back with them and taught it to their friends.  (source: Gizycki, p. 30)

In 1144, Hyde Abbey, Winchester, was destroyed by fire.  It contained Chessmen from King Cnut.

In 1148, Kalhana wrote Rajatarangini.  He wrote, “The King, though he had taken two kings, was helpless and perplexed about the attack on the remaining one, just as a player of chess (who has taken two Kings and is perplexed about taking a third).  In this line, the reference is to the game of chaturaji.

In 1148, Anna Komnene (1083-1153) wrote Alexiad, an account of the reign of her father, the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Komneros (1081-1118).  She mentions that he was in the habit of playing chess with members of his court.  (source: Eales, p. 42)

In 1157, a Danish king saved himself by using a chessboard as a shield.

In 1167, the Jewish Spanish rabbi, Abraham ibn Ezra (1092-1167), wrote a chess poem in Hebrew that was published for the first time by Thomas Hyde in 1689.  The poem was called Charusim al Sechok Shahmath (Verses on the game of Chess).  He was born in Spain and died on the island of Rhodes.  His remains were later removed to Palestine.  (source: Brace, p. 9)  The poem contained a description of a game of chess between the pieces symbolizing the Ethiopians and the Edomites.  The game was conducted according to the rules at the time in Arabian and Spanish lands.  (source: Gizycky, p. 23)

In 1173, A French chess manuscript was written that used algebraic notation.

In 1190, King Richard I (1157-99) learned chess while on the Crusades. 

In 1195, rabbi Maimonides included chess among the forbidden games.

When the Arabs carried the game across the Mediterranean into Spain and Sicily, chess began to reflect Western feudal structures.  The queen replaced the vizier, the horse (horse with a rider) was transformed into a knight, the chariot became a tower (rook), the elephant became a bishop (though in France, it became a jester or fool, and in Italy, it became a standard bearer).  Only the king an foot soldier (pawn from the old French paon) remained exactly the same.  (Yalom, p. XIX)

Before modern chess, the chessboard was not checkered with black and white squares.  Stalemating the opposing king resulted in a win for the player delivering stalemate (mate ahogado).  Capturing all the opponent’s pieces except the king, called bare king (robado) counted as a win.  There was no castling or en passant option.  (Shenk, p. 31) 

By the 12^th century, chess had reached Bavaria, France, and England.  By the mid-13^th century, chess had reached Iceland.  Ever since, Europe has been the cradle of the game’s development.  (Sharples, p. 4)

The first British reference to chess is the 36-line Latin poem De Shahiludo, written by a Winchester monk. It was written in the last decade of the 12th century. The poem uses the words calvus for bishop, regina for queen, rex for king, equestris for knight, rochus for rook, and pedestris for pawn.  The poem adds that when the pedestris (pawn reaches the lst line, it is then called a ferzia.  If the gae had had Saxon origins, the pawn would have been referred to as “a peasant,” not “a pedestrian.”  (source: Davidson, p. 140)

In 1190, Alexander Neckam (1157-1217), a Winchester monk, devoted a chapter to chess in his treatise De Naturis Rerum (On the Nature of Things).  He described the game and its rules after the manner of the poetic accounts before going on to condemn it for being passionate and frivolous.  Neckam invented a chess variant in which the pawns occupied the first row while the major pieces occupied the second row.   (source: Eales, p. 51)  Neckham considered chess “a waste of time, and, worse, something that often led to heated brawls.”  (source: Yalom p. 97)

In 1198 Eudes de Sully or Odo (1150-1208), the Bishop of Paris, wrote the Synodal regulations that forbade the seminarists in having chessmen in their rooms.  He also tried to ban chess in Paris.  (Gizycki, p. 20)  His 29^th Synodal Precept read: “Ne in suis domibus habeant scaccos” (Let them not have chess in their homes).  (source: Davidson, p. 137)

In 1199, Giraldi Cambrensis, better known as Gerald of Wales (1146-1223), wrote an essay called Gemma ecclesiastica (Jewel of the Church).  In it, he wrote that he regretted that solving of chess problems had become fashionable among priests.  (source: Averbakh, p. 50)

In 1210, Pope Innocent III (1160-1216) was alleged to have written Quaedam Moralitas de Scaccario (Innocent Morality).  Pope Innocent III once said that if any man plays chess and should quarrel in consequence and kill his opponent, it was not homicide.  The Innocent Morality was probably written by Johannes Gallensis (John of Waleys), a Franciscan friar.  It starts out, “All the world is but a chess board of which one part is white, the other black, being the two states of life and death, praise and blame.”  (source: Davidson, p. 146) 

In 1212, Ferdinand (Ferrand) (1188-1233) of Portugal hit his wife Jeanne over a game of chess when she won.  When he became prisoner in 1214, she never tried to obtain his release.

In 1226, Buzzeca, a Sicilian, visited Florence and played two players at the same time while blindfolded, and at the same time he played a third opponent over the board.  (source: Schonberg, p. 17)

In 1230, the Icelandic Snorri Sturluson or St Olaf’s Saga contained chess reference.  It was the 1st appearance of chess in the Norse lands.

In 1240, Chess was forbidden to the clergy in Worcester, England. 

In 1250, King Louis of France threw a chess set overboard during a trip from Egypt to the Holy Land.

 In 1250, the king of Denmark was captured while playing chess.

 In 1254, under the influence of the Church and after returning from the Crusades, King Louis IX (1214-1270) of France issued an edict totally forbidding chess as a game that was useless and boring.  He did not want people to be intellectually empowered.  King Louis IX was the only French king to be made a saint (Saint Louis).  (source: Gizycki, p. 20)

In August 1254, William de Wendene of Essex was playing chess (ad scaccarium) with Robert, son of Bernard, a knight of Essex.  While playing chess, a quarrel arose between them.  Robert, the knight’s squire, intervened to break up the fight.  William then struck Robert, the squire, in the stomach with a knife, killing Robert.  William then fled the place and took sanctuary in the church of St. Mary ate Hulte.  (source: Eales, p. 55)

 Around 1255, Edward I (Longshanks) was in the middle of a game of chess with one of his knights in a vaulted room when suddenly, he got up and walked away.  Seconds later, a massive stone fell from the ceiling on the very spot he had been sitting.  The massive stone would have killed him.  In 1300, an inventory was mad of his possessions, which included a chess set made of crystal and jasper.  (sources: Divinsky, p. 59 and Trivel’s annals, 1845)

 In 1255, the Provincial Council of Beziers in France forbade chess.

 In 1260, King Henry III (1207-72) instructed the clergy to leave chess alone.

In 1262, Russian word for chess (shakmatny) was introduced.

In 1263, David de Bristoll and Juliana, wife of Richard le Cordwaner, were playing chess in Richard’s house.  While playing chess, a quarrel arose between them.  David then struck Juliana in the thigh with a sword, killing her.  David at once fled.  (sources: Eales, p. 55 and The London Eyre, 1276, case #151)

In 1271, ruling Dalmation towns of Yugoslavia was determined by a chess match.

In 1273, the Cotton manuscript is the earliest English collection of chess problems.

Around 1275, the Dominican friar Jacobus de Cessolis (1250-1322) wrote Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobelium super ludo scaccorum (“book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess”).  It was published in Lombardy, Italy.  He had been using the game of chess as the basis for a series of sermon on morality.  By 1550, it had been printed in over a dozen different editions.  Several manuscript versions are extant.  (source: Wilson, p. 3)  There have been 70 copies in Latin, 40 in German, 20 in French, and 10 in Italian.  The first German translation was printed in Augsburg in 1477.  (source: Buehrer, p. 28)  His Latin manuscript is still preserved in the library of the seminary in Padua.  In 1493, the first Italian edition was printed at Florence.  In 1534, the second edition was printed at Venice.  (source: Pruen, p. 58)

In 1283, Alfonso the Wise (1221-1284), King of Castile, had the monks of the monastery of St. Lorenzo del Escorial (near Madrid) create a beautifuly illustrated parchment manuscript dealing with chess, dice, and other board games.  It is known as the Alfonso Manuscript. It is an important historical document of 98 pages.  (source: Divinsky, p. 6)  It has 103 chess problems mainly drawn from older Muslim sources.  An archaic form of descriptive notation is used in the manuscript.  (source: Brace, p. 16)  Two significant departures from the laws of shatranj are noted: the queen’s leap and the pawn’s double move.  (source: Hooper, p. 9)  One of the miniatures (small images in the manuscript) depicts future King of England Edward I playing chess with his bride, the Princess of Castile and Leon.  The book reflects the relationship between the royal courts of Spain and England.  (source: Averbakh, pp. 49-50)

In 1290, the Lombard lawyer, Guido de Baysio, formulated the rules to govern chess.

In 1291, John Peckham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, threatened to put the prior and canons of Coxford in Norfolk on a diet of bread and water unless they desisted from chess playing.  (source: Schonberg, p. 17)  He wrote: “The Priors and Canons, one and all, had been led astray by an evilly-disposed person named Robert de Hunstaneston, who had actually taught them to play chess, which heinous vice was to be banished, even if it came to three days and nights on bread and water.  (source Golombek 1976, p. 55) 

At the end of the 13^th century, Nicholas de St. Nicholai was the author of a vellum manuscript of 182 leaves containing 290 illustrated chess problems.  The treatise was called Bonus Socius (Good Companion).  It was written in Latin in Lombardy, Italy.  It was created as a compendium of all known chess problems.  (source: Brace, p. 43)

In 1300, Hugo von Trimberg of Bamberg, wrote, “This world resembles a chessboard.  Both are peopled by kings queens, counts (rooks), knights, bishops and peasants (pawns).  God leads us through His game in the same way as a player moves his chess figures.  The man who surrenders to sinful thoughts will always be held in check by the devil and will lose his soul to mate if he does not know how to protect himself.”  Chess reflected the divine order of the world.  (source: Buehrer, p. 26)

About 1300, a two-square leap of the fers (queen) was permitted.  This made the moves of the ferz and alfil (bishop) identical.  This represented the first extension of the queen’s powers.  For a while, the queen even had the leap of the knight in addition to her regular move.  This persisted in Turkish and Russian chess until the 18^th century.  (source: Davidson p. 29)

In 1309, Ponce Hugo, Count of Ampurias, donated his chessmen to the cathedral of Gerona. 

In 1330, Giovanni Duvignay, Priest Ospitaliero of S. Jacopo d'Altopascio translanted Cessolis's chess book into French.

In 1335, Robert, King of Hungary, sent John, King of Bohemia, a chess set.

In 1337, the Swiss Benedictine monk from the Rhine Palatinate, Konrad von Ammenhausen (1300-1360), wrote a chess morality manuscript called Schachzabelbuch.  It was a Middle High German verse translation of Cessolis’s book.  In 1507, it was printed in Constance by Doctor Jacobus Mennel.  In 1520, another copy was printed.  The work survives in more than 20 manuscripts.    (source: Gizycki, p. 24) 

In 1340, the Persian 'treasury of sciences' includes 3 chapters on chess.

Around 1340, the Duke of Mazovia was playing chess with a knight named Pierzchala.  Pierzchala mated the duke with a rook move.  The duke was so amazed that he placed the rook on Pierzchala’s crest and granted him an estate.  (source: Gizycki, p. 31)

In 1347, a translation of the Cessolis chess morality into French was made by the monk Giovanni Ferron. 

In 1350, Margiolano of Florence was recognized as the leading blindfold chess player.

In 1369, Chaucer (1343-1400) wrote about chess in his poem The Book of the Duchess.

In 1374, Timur named his son shah-rukh after playing chess. 

In 1375, King Charles V (1337-1380) of France outlawed games of chance (such as dice and backgammon) but spared the noble intellectual exercise of chess.  (soure: Monte, p. 15) 

In the 14^th century, a lawyer named Ala’Addin As Tabrizi, better known as Aladdin, was also a chess player.  He was at the court of Timur (Tamerlane) the Mongol emperor.  A 15^th century manuscript in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society in London gives some of his life story.  He travelled extensively abd beat all comers in chess.  He said that he could play four games blindfolded.  (source: Divinsky, p. 3)  So successful was he as a chess player, in particular as an odds-giver, that he became known as Ali Shanranji (Ali the chess player).  (source: Golombek, p. 9)

In the 14^th century, the Germans were calling today’s bishop a “sage” (der alte).  Within a 100 years, it was called a rifleman (der schutze).  Since 1750, it has been called laufer (courier or messenger).  This is the name by which the bishop is known in Germany and in the Scandinavian countries today.  (source: Davidson, p. 36)

In 1380, William of Wykeleham, founder of Oxford, forbade chess at Oxfor.

In 1390, John I of Aragon requested a chess board and set at his lodging in Valencia.

In 1392, Charles VI (1368-1422) forbade chess.

In 1396, in the Chronicle of the Moorish Kings of Grenada, it was related that Mehmed Balba seized upon the throne.  He ordered an officer to the fort of Solobrena to put his brother Juzaf, a prisoner there, to death.  The officer found the prince playing chess.  The officer permitted Juzaf to go on with the game until it was finished, before executing him.  However, before the chess game was finished, a messanger arrived with the news that Mehmed had just died.  Juzaf was spared, and succeeded the crown.  (source: Pruen p. 20)

In 1397, Louis, Duke of Orleans, purchased an elaborate chessboard.

The nomenclatures and meanings of the pieces have been different in different places and languages.  In Sanskirt, the pieces were king, counselor, elephant, horse, chariot, and foot-soldier (for king, queen, bishop, knight, rook and pawn). In Java, the meanings of the pieces were king, lord, counselor, horse, boat, and foot soldier.  In Tibet, the pieces were king, tiger, camel, horse, chariot, and child.  In Mongolia, the pieces were prince, dog, camel, horse, chariot, and child.  In Burma, the pieces were king, general, elephant horse, chariot, and foot soldier.  In Thailand (Siam), the pieces were lord, minister, nobleman, horse, boat, and shell.  In China, Korea, and Japan, the pieces were general, counselor, elephant, horse, chariot, and foot soldier.  (source: Murray, p.28) 

By the 14^th century, chess had become a favorite pastime for prelates, monks, and nuns.  (source: Monte, p. 15)