For some time chess was viewed by the Roman Catholic Church as a "path to perdition". Eventually the church began to change their tune on chess and viewed it as a propaganda gold mine as opposed to a evil pass time. Specifically, "Jacobus de Cessolis used chess as the basis for a series of sermons" (Yalom 68). By this time chess was no longer considered a game of war due to the inclusion of non-warlike pieces such as the king and queen. This allowed Cessolis took advantage of this new paradigm to convey chess as an allegory for society. Using the chess board to demonstrate an ideal state Cessolis preached of a "social pyramid" with the king on top and the peasants at the bottom.
In two books based on Cessolis's sermons, The Book of the Customs of Men and the Duties of Nobles and The Book of Chess, each station of life was described in terms of it's chess piece. The knight had the most obvious description. Being described as "brave compassionate, generous, and wise", the knight was depicted in" the usual knightly accouterments, including gauntlets and greaves, helmet and shield." The rooks were transformed from turrets to the envoys of the king and "[were] to be dressed in a fur coat...[and] in his right hand he shall hold a staff to show that he is on the King's business". The rook was expected to act with "justice, piety, humility, patience, voluntary poverty and generosity". Cessolis described the pieces flanking the king and queen, the modern day bishop's, as judges who's, "virtue lay in firmness, incorruptibility, intelligence, and wisdom" . As a note, the discrepancy in this description came from the fact that Europeans did not know what to do with the original Indian elephant based piece. (Yalom, 70).
Cessolis also used the pieces of the king and queen to demonstrate their ideal characteristics, specifically the control of sexuality. "Thus the king 'must observe absolute continence. That is symbolized by a single Queen'", or in other words monogamous. Due to raising anxieties over the raising female power. To undercut the queen's political importance the women were presented exclusively as wives and mothers. The queen was required to "be chaste, docile, descended from a good family, and attentive to the upbringing of her sons". Cessolis used the words chaste and chasity repeatedly to remind the reader that "sexual fidelity was particularly crucial for a queen, so as to ensure that her offspring were unequivocally descended form the king." Furthermore, Cessolis described a unique move in which the king was allowed to move up to 4 spaces in any combination on his first move. In a further attempt to undermined the queen, the rule allowed the queen to follow the king on this move. In reality the move was a "symbolic attempt to remind the queen that she belonged to the king" (Yalom, 69-71).
Still, propaganda without an audience isn't much use. To that end Cessolis payed special attention to the pawns, analogous to the peasants, on the board. Each pawn represented a different lower class profession. The first pawn was described as a "peasant and a wine grower" while the second pawn was said to be a "smith carpenter and mason". The attention Cessolis payed to the lower class i most likely the secret behind his success, and may even help bring chess to the masses. Cessolis's Book of Chess was a medieval best seller. In fact, after the advent of the printing press, the printer Caxton published the book second, after the bible. 4.
Yalom, Marilyn. The Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: Harper Cllins, 2004.
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