Today, chess is associated with daytime professional competitions on ESPN2 and nerds in the back of the high school lunchroom. It's hard to imagine a time when the game was considered a serious element of social status and even an allegory for society as a whole. Such a time existed in the game's advent in Europe.
The role of chess in Spain dates back to the 8th century in Spanish Muslim culture. The Book of the Games of Chess, Dice, and Boards from the 13th century illustrates the game's relevance during the height of its influence across Europe. Women were explicitly encouraged to play, along with prisoners and slaves. Pawns were called "inferiors" and the other pieces were called "superiors" to assert the nobility's social status among all players. It was the only game acceptable for royalty to play. (Yalom 66)
Chess came to France from Spain. Playing chess was seen as a sign of wisdom, but also as a dangerous game where players could lose their tempers and physically harm each other, sometimes on the same level as jousting (Yalom 85). It was in France that replacement of the "standard bearer" from the Spanish board was first popularized as the Queen - although at that point in time, the Queen was still one of the weaker pieces. According to French accounts, the game was played with a different strategy than it is today. Pieces were valued based on the position they held in society in addition to their purpose on the board. (Yalom 97)
The game likely came to England from Normandy in the 11th century, and its reception was somewhat similar. The game was known to provoke violence, and in the mid 13th century, the game was banned altogether by the clergy. Many English theologians across multiple religions condemned chess as a form of gambling because it was often played for money. (Yalom 104) These attempts to destroy the game largely failed, and it remained popular even in monasteries.
Jacobus de Cessolis, a Dominican friar in Italy, used chess to teach his congregation about society - a very conservative yet real view of society in the 13th century: "The king belonged at the top of the social pyramid and the peasants at the bottom." (Yalom 68) Each piece represented some part of society. Even the pawns were designated as carpenters, weavers, merchants, doctors, and innkeepers. Yalom notes that the descriptions of the pieces in Cessolis' Book of Chess was designed to enforce the monogamous views of the Catholic Church: "the king must observe absolute continence...symbolized by a single Queen." (Yalom 69).
During the same time in Germany, chess was a game of nobility where everyone was expected to know how to play. When it spread outside the circles of nobility, the rules were often recited in poems or songs, most notably through the Carmina Burana, a rhymed poem of Latin couplets. (Yalom 77) The village of Ströbeck even required students to learn chess in school.
The historical significance of chess is particularly interesting in studying the general perception of games today. Will we get to a point where being good at Guitar Hero is socially embraced, or if leading a guild in World of Warcraft is respectable outside of Azeroth? It's a silly thought, but it will also be enlightening to see where culture takes us in the next decade.
Works Cited: Yalom, Marilyn. The Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.
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