Game Design as Cultural Practice Fall 2009

Yet Another Blogpost on Chess and Islam

Actual title: “’Avoid them, so that you may prosper’: Conflicting Representations of Chess in Islam”

The role of chess in early Islam was one that was contradictory and full of inconsistencies. Arguably, its role in other cultures was one that could be more easily transcribed, such as the 1274 ban on chess in an English monastery. By contrast, chess was so common in different aspects of Muslim culture that the significance of the game was contingent on its various interpretations. In particular, the implications of chess playing on religious and gendered conventions are tumultuous, they offer powerful insights into the ‘constructedness’ of Islamic traditions, as well as the differing social contexts in which these traditions took place.

Marilyn Yalom’s research in Birth of the Chess Queen suggests that chess was already established in Muslim culture as early as the 7^th century and was arguably popularized by Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the late 8^th to early 9^th century. In this account of the game’s history, the caliph used the game as a means through which citizens could rise through the established social structure. Whereas chess was limited to nobility or the upper classes of other cultures, the story of al-Rashid suggests that chess was a game played by people from various positions within the social order as people from the lower classes were given the opportunity to move beyond their circumstances by the virtue of their chess skills. Another particular story, as accounted in The Arabian Nights, tells of a slave girl whose mastery of the game helped her escape a sentence that had been imposed on her (Yalom 9). While Yalom concedes that the historical accuracy of this story is debatable at best, the very fact that the literature of the time features a slave woman playing chess is in and of itself a commentary on the lack of social restrictions in relation to chess.

Though this interpretation of the history of chess seems to suggest a prevalence of the game, its role in Muslim culture was not so readily accepted. There were three main objections, all of which criticize the game based on its alleged transgression of religious values. Insofar as chess was a game, this alone was grounds for disapproval by Muslim clerics; any action that was not directly religious was seen to distract Muslims from performing otherwise pious activities. Time that was spent learning the game and its various strategies was time taken away from prayer and religious devotion (Yalom 104). Not only was chess a game, but it was a game that—in some contexts—involved the use of dice. Though chess was typically played without dice in Islamic cultures, the introduction of chance was enough for religious leaders to decry the game as a form of gambling, which is expressly forbidden in any form according to Muslim beliefs. In this way, chess posed a dual threat as a game. More significantly, however, chess was seen as haraam (taboo) because of the iconographic representation of the pieces. Though this is a point that is contested between different groups within Islam, the established interpretation was that the chess pieces could be construed as “idols,” which were “abominations devised by Satan,” and thus a threat to the Islamic faith (Yalom 7). While chess and its game conventions are highly controversial, it remained (paradoxically) highly popular by a large portion of the population.

There is yet another disconnect between chess and Islamic conventions with respect to its relationship to women. While Yalom’s book focuses primarily on the queen piece, she mentions on several occasions that Muslim manifestations of the game still used the vizier piece. This could easily be construed as an example of misogyny as the introduction of a strong female piece is rejected in order to maintain an all-male presence on the chessboard. This interpretation is not without its problems, however. One thing to consider is the vizier itself: the piece can only move one space at a time, only diagonally, easily making it one of the weakest pieces on the board. This somewhat complicates the gendered commentary on Islamic chess rules if the prevailing icon of phallic strength is effectively devoid of any strength.

In addition to a lack of a female presence on the board, there is another question of gendered interpretations with respect to the players beyond the board. Though the argument for misogyny is easier to make with the vizier piece, Yalom presents evidence that women were prominent players to the same degree as men were. In 1283, Spanish king Alfonso’s Book of Chess depicts Moorish women surrounding a chessboard (Yalom 63). Women may not have been present on the board, but—like the slave girl in Caliph al-Rashid’s court—they were significant enough to partake in an activity that required great strategic thinking and insight. Despite this, however, it is also worth noting that the caliph was in the habit of awarding the victors of his chess games—often with other slave girls as prizes. It is the paradoxical nature of al-Rashid’s story that best serves as a metaphor for the varying—and often antagonistic—representations of chess in early Islamic culture.

Works Cited:
Yalom, Marilyn. Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2005.

The Queen's Trek Across the Europe Chessboard

One of the most important, if not the most important, piece in chess is the queen. As evident to anyone familiar with the rules of chess, the queen holds the most desirable move, which is the ability to go across the board in a straight line or diagonally. Often if one player loses his queen, he is left at a serious disadvantage, unless of course you are Joshua Waitzkin who so famously sacrificed his queen in order to procure a checkmate a few moves later. However, as Marilyn Yalom enlightens in Birth of the Chess Queen, the mechanics of the all-powerful queen piece was not always evident in chess, and for a while the piece did not hold her awesome movement.            

The biggest difference between the queen today and its past iterations can be seen in the Muslim community where much of the earlier plays of chess are said to be started. Obviously, because of the Muslim's views on women and their social status in society, the queen piece was considered one of the weakest pieces on the board. In fact, the Arabic style of chess that was often played then used abstract pieces and instead of a queen, used a male form called the vizier. As the game expanded to other regions and religions, the style also changed as Christians were much more comfortable with human-like pieces. Also, by then several prominent female leaders had made a name for themselves in history like Matlida of Tuscany and Dona Urraca so the presence of a queen piece in place of the vizier was not uncommon and generally accepted.            

During the onset of the Middle Ages and as the concept of king and queen royalty increased in popularity, the presence of the queen piece began to take a more important role, especially in terms of social commentary. Most notably, as chess made its way to Italy, the connection between the king and queen began to reflect the ideals that the Christians had on their kings and queens. As stated in Jacobus de Cessolis's wildly popular book, The Book of Chess, the king was to acknowledge the practice of monogamy and the practice of having one queen as practiced by the reigning Catholics of the time. Therefore, the game's element of turning a pawn into a queen once it reaches the other side was looked down on, and methods of distinguishing the "true" queen and "created" queens or  only allowing one queen per player on the board were attempted. Even as chess made its merry way into Germany, many of the tight connections between the king and queen followed, and in some ways were reinforced. Carmina Burana states that once the queen is caught then "there is nothing of any value left on the board".  Yalom conjectures about whether this meant that the queen had better movement then her early one diagonal square move, but likely it was more of a social commentary on the status of the queen in real life, as was the case with most of the pieces.            

As the queen made her way through Europe, her status in the game was relatively modest, that is until Eleanor of Aquitaine and her granddaughter, Blanche of Castile, placed their mark on history. Both were in positions of much political power and gained popularity among the people which could be reflected on the chessboard as the queen piece continued to replace the vizier and the importance of the queen rose among the players. Of course, one of the biggest factors in changing the status of the queen, as already mentioned, was the rise of Christianity and the views on the Virgin Mary. Catholicism was huge in the Middle Ages and between the countries of England and France there were many allusions to Mary when talking about the queen  in chess. If the queen was truly a representation of Mary then it deserved unmatched power in order to combat the "devil" which was, in this case, the other player. Perhaps this explains why the chess queen today has so much power.            

There was also a rising interest in the act of courting and the appearance and rise of power of the chess queen helped change the cultural and social views on women. Chess was beginning to be seen as a way for men and women to come together and play a game as equals, which at the same time allowed for easier courting opportunities. This went both ways as the increase in cultural acceptance of females led to an even greater increase in the chess queen's power and status, which is reflected in today's game.            

Evidently, the game of chess was very much influenced as it made its way across the different countries and cultures of Europe. With all the separate cultures and religions placing their mark upon the game, it certainly was not the same from its earliest form in India. What changed the most, perhaps, is the chess queen, from her first form of vizier to her now powerful place among the squares It is clear that the rise of queens and influential women not only shaped the world into what it is today but also the world of chess.

Bibliography

Yalom, Marilyn. The Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005

The Culture of Chess: The Virgin-Queen Connection

The Culture of Chess: Topic B
by Brian Hertler

Chess occupied an uncertain moral position among the twelfth and thirteenth century European clergy.  Though the game was initially viewed with suspicion or even outright scorn -- being an excuse for gambling (Yalom 28), acting as a trigger for passion of a violent (103) or sexual nature (137), and even incorporating dice in some variants (28) -- it became widespread among the nobility, and skill in the game became expected for aristocrats of both genders (94); meanwhile, acceptance of the game gradually filtered into the clergy itself, and chess even became a convenient metaphor to describe social order (67) and the court of heaven (117).  Nevertheless, the process of acceptance was fragmented; even as late as the mid-thirteenth century, religious-minded rulers attempted to ban the game (103).  One factor contributing to the game's eventual destigmatization was its connection to the Virgin Mary, especially during the rise of Mariolatry in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries (115).  This association had further repercussion on views of both the game and medieval female rulers, and it is this series of effects that I would like to focus on. 

I argue that, among the powerful female figures that Yalom catalogues in Birth of the Chess Queen, Mary is the real pivotal figure in the book.  The Madonna stands at the intersection of many of the central tensions surrounding medieval culture -- sacred and profane spaces, war and civility, sexuality, and feminine identity -- which all touched on the game.  In fact, Yalom acknowledges that it was the Virgin Mary's apparent likeness on a Scandinavian chess piece (107) that inspired her to write the history of the chess queen: her search for similar pieces led her to explore the wider history of the game piece.  While it seems that the Virgin rarely appears "in person" (as it were) on the chessboard, her cultural and psychological influence on the game seems to run very deep indeed. 

Her most obvious relationship to the game is through the representation of feminine power.  Since Mary is by far the most prevalent female in the Christian tradition, and since the queen is the only female representative in chess (Yalom writes, "Both women enjoyed the 'queen bee' privilege of being the only female on the playing field" [114]), it's easy to make links to, and between, these iconic figures when discussing female power.  The connections were certainly not lost on the people of the time; earthly female rulers took pains to associate themselves with veneration of Mary (most notably Blanche of Castille [101]), and writers' commentary on the chess queens waxed and waned with their opinions of their current ruler (97).  We may think of the Virgin Mary, the chess queen, and European medieval queens as three connected sides of a triangle: women rulers influenced our thinking about the chess queen, the cult of the Virgin reinforced the legitimacy of the earthly rulers (117), and the game of chess provided a metaphoric framework for thinking about both other sides.  Poets of the time could write allegorical works about Mary outwitting the Devil on a chessboard (112), and noblewomen of the time could see a female riding into battle, much like Dona Urraca (49), in what was fundamentally a game about war.  As time passed, Mary herself came to be known as a queen -- she was "Maria Regina" and the queen of heaven (117), both modeled after and influencing the European queens of the time, with the chess queen often functioning as intermediary.  To name one example of this mediated role, the word for the chess queen transitioned from its historical roots to terms associated with the Virgin (reine in French, dama in Spanish, donna in Italian, etc.) -- but only in Catholic countries, and only during the apex of Mariolatry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (119).

Another major connection, and a far more interesting and convoluted one, concerns the chess queen's role in medieval sexuality, especially as it relates to the Virgin Mary.  It struck me as peculiar that a game about an abstraction of warfare, especially one so well suited to religious and moralistic allegories (69), should become a ritual of courtship in the later Middle Ages (123 and onwards), and I suspect that some of the same internal tension at the heart of the Virgin Mother archetype comes into play, concentrated particularly in the figure of the chess queen.  While the queen is always depicted as a remote figure, seated regally at the side of her husband, and is described by moralists as "chaste" and "docile" (Yalom quoting Cessolis, 69), some contemporary writers nevertheless speak of her with more erotic associations: Gautier d'Arras uses her to describe adultery (93), and an anonymous thirteenth century author writes jokingly about her sexual exploits (leading Yalom to speculate that "the queen sent out vibrations that were responsible for sexualizing the playing field" [130]).  This juxtaposition of remoteness and accessibility is analogous to the style of the medieval troubadours, who often proclaimed their love for a married, and therefore unobtainable, woman (124).  It's both troubling and intriguing that Gautier de Coinci completes the third side of our triangle by writing about the Virgin Mary in the style of a troubadour (113) -- though he compares her to a chess queen instead of the typical figures such as Venus or Flora (114), the language follows the same conventions.  It makes me wonder about similar works that may have been composed at the time, and I think it's a question deserving of research: was it prevalent to write about the Madonna in a romantic style?

The connection of the Virgin Mary to the chess queen, though only receiving a short chapter in Birth of the Chess Queen, goes much deeper and is certainly relevant to other topics as well.  Much of it will go outside the scope of this class, but, for somebody with an interest in Catholic theology, the topic seems like a worthwhile starting place for further reading. 

Works Cited:

Yalom, M.  2004.  Birth of the Chess Queen.  New York:  HarperCollins.

The Culture of Chess: The Religious Square

    Chess is peculiar because of its unique position in the world of religion. Even back in its early days, chess was both the subject and object of religious discussion, influencing religious metaphors and being influenced by religious ideals. During the first half of the second century in Europe, the game was known and played by people of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian faiths, each of which adapted and responded to the game in different ways.

 

    Of these three faiths, the Muslims were the first to play chess, bringing the game to Spain and thus Europe around 711. Despite the love of chess by the Islamic people, religious issues caused them to question the game. Because the Qur’an forbids idols, the Sunni Muslims decided that the realistic portrayal of humans and animals on a chessboard broke this law. Because of this, the game was changed, at least in the Muslim world, and all the pieces became abstract shapes representing ideas. In 10^th-century Spain, this type of chessboard persisted within both Muslim and Christian territories, showing that while the change was originally religiously-motivated, the change had far-reaching influence. In this case, it was religion that affected the game of chess.

 

    Despite the introduction of abstract chess sets, not every religion found the change to be necessary. Most Jews were less stringent concerning the “graven images” forbidden to them, and European Christians even encouraged the artistic creation of living beings. As a result, both abstract and realistic sets of chess pieces persisted.

 

    The Jewish community seems to have accepted chess more or less without qualm. For instance, in the 11^th century, the Spanish rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra used chess as the subject of a poem, notably mentioning the queen as one of the pieces. Although the idea of a female on the chessboard was new (it originally was the “general” or the “vizier”) and somewhat controversial, Marily Yalom speculates in her book Birth of the Chess Queen that ibn Ezra would find it easy to accept the idea of an powerful woman because of similar examples of strong women in the Old Testament (such as Deborah).

 

    A passage from another Jewish poem, written in the 12^th century by Bonsenior ibn Yehia, acts as a tribute to women disguised as a description of the chess queen. Not only does this show the Jewish attitude of acceptance of chess, but it echoes similar passages from the Bible in Proverbs 31 and the Song of Solomon. In this case, religion and chess draw from each other, blending together in a single metaphor.

 

    Among Christian cultures, chess was more directly influential on religious imagery. In the 13^th century, the Italian Dominican friar Jacobus de Cessolis gave a series of sermons that was eventually published as the Book of Chess. These sermons used chess as a societal model and as a tool to present Christian values, such as the monogamy of the chess king, who has a single queen. This metaphor proved incredibly popular, because by the 16^th century, only the Bible exceeded the Book of Chess in numbers of copies in print.

 

    The English Franciscan monk John of Wales also used chess for religious symbolism during the same century, presenting chess as a picture of life, death, sin, and redemption, in which death comes for everyone in the end. Both these examples demonstrate that not only could religion affect the game of chess, but that the game of chess could extend its influence into religion.

 

    But Christianity is not without its influences on chess, either. In The Birth of the Chess Queen, Marilyn Yalom talks about the “Cult of the Virgin Mary” and how some poets, such as Gautier de Conci (late 12^th/early 13^th centuries) in Miracles of Our Lady, present the Virgin Mary as “God’s Chess Queen” who fights the Devil on the chessboard. Yalom speculates that this depiction may in part be responsible for the rise of the chess queen to prominence over the original general and vizier.

 

    On the subject of Christianity and chess, it is also interesting to note a division between the Protestant and Roman Catholic denomenations. Roman Catholic countries such as Spain, Italy, and France refer to the chess queen with terms that evoke ideas of “Our Lady,” that is the Virgin Mary. Intentionally distinguishing themselves from the “Cult of the Virgin Mary,” Protestant Reformed nations such as England and Germany adopted more secular, regal terms. Once again, religion influenced the game of chess.

 

    Despite all of these examples, chess was not always accepted positively by religion. Islamic caliphs, Jewish rabbis, and Christian bishops have all placed bans on chess at various times for various reasons. Objections to the game were usually in reaction the practices of gambling over chess games or occasionally throwing dice to determine the moves. There was also some concern about disputes that arose from chess games, which was in fact a legitimate issue. For instance, in the 13^th century in London, there were at least two “chess homicides” that arose from hot-tempered sore losers. Furthermore, the Muslim community held the additional concern that playing chess would distract from their religious duties.

 

    All these concerns aside, chess has managed to persist. Even if a bishop might forbid the clergy from playing chess, the laity would continue to play and eventually the games popularity would supersede its religious concerns. Likewise, recently in the 1980s, when the Taliban forbade chess for the Muslim public in Afghanistan, the chess sets were hidden only to reappear as soon as the Taliban lost power. Thus, even though religion and chess both had strong influences on each other, the influence of religion over chess was never absolute when it came to one of culture’s favorite board games.

 

Daniel Fuller

Dfuller3

 

 

 

Works Cited:

 

1. Yalom, M. (2004). The Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: Harper Collins.

The Culture of Chess: The Real Chess Queen

One of the most striking women that played a large role in the spread and popularization of chess was Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204). Thanks to her grandfather William IX of Aquitaine, Eleanor, who spent her childhood surrounded by games, pros, art , and music carried a lightheartedness that she spread through all of her travels. During her life, Eleanor helped spread chess through France and England and not only popularized the game, but as Yalom suggests, her illustrious reign may have even helped enhance the prestige of the queen on the board(105). Eleanor's strength as she ruled with both her husbands as well as on her own is very reminiscent of the extreme powers held by the chess queen on the current board.

During Eleanor's reign both men and women were expected to play the game of chess. Children were trained early in the game of chess as it was expected of any well-born lady as well as any young gentlemen. It is very interesting, as Yalom points out, that no misogynistic distinctions were drawn between the sexes in chess (95).  For young men, the game was meant to introduce military tactics. As the boys grew into men the ability became a sign of wisdom, as displayed in The Son of Roland where only the "wisest and the oldest" of the knights played the game of chess. The game was so integral in life at this time that even royal prisoners, if allowed nothing else, were at least allowed a chess partner. Soldiers even  played the game in their spare time between the seasons war.  

Chess, however popular during this time, was not beloved by all. The Christian church frowned upon the playing of this game because of the violence it was beginning to spread, especially among the commoners and in gambling houses. Most of the attempts to ban chess stayed within the church though, and even then, the monks still played the game (Yalom 103). Even Jewish rabbi's frowned upon the game of chess and some even declared that professional chess players could not be trusted in court (Yalom 104). Just as the monks ignored the Archbishops bans on chess, the rabbi's pronouncement against chess fell on deaf ears. The game was even played on Jews on the Sabbath, without any stakes of course (Yalom 104). Besides the few religious denouncements of chess, the game continued to gain extreme popularity during Eleanor's rule.

Eleanor did more than just spread the game of chess, she helped turn it into a language for lovers as well. The unique Aquitainean examination of love between the sexes became a hot topic in liteature all over Europe. Chess was not only military strategy game for boys or social expectation for girls, it was more. The chess board became the playing field for love and sex (Yalom 124). An entirely new language of love arose out of the game of chess during this era. Some of the literature directly related to the sexual conquests of men and women, while others alluded to the sanctity of marriage, especially between a king and his queen. Some literature focused more on jest and the fun of the chase of a suitor. The troubadour's spirit was truly expressed through the game of chess.

Eleanor's upbringing in Aquitaine greatly impacted her outlook on life and the way in which she spread the troubadour spirit and the game of chess through Europe. The game of chess was widely accepted by all and even expected of nobles during her rule. Even though many religious clerics denounced the game, chess still spread like wild fire thanks to Eleanor. The game of chess wasn't the only thing Eleanor helped spread, the language of love transcribed through chess is arguably one of her most appealing contributions to the game.

Bibliography:

Yalom, Marilyn. The Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

The Courts of Eleanor of Aquitaine

Through various medieval royal marriages, the chess cultures of different areas often intertwined and have grayed in their distinctions. I will be focusing on the cultural role of chess in the kingdom of Eleanor of Aquitaine and her family during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Focus lies mostly on England during the rule of Eleanor and France during the rule of her great grandson, Louis IX. During this time, English and French chess culture was influenced greatly by their respective rulers.

During the rule of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the game of chess was reserved mostly for the first row of chess figures – royalty, clergy, nobles, and their courts. It was assumed that any person of class should and would know how to play chess, especially in courts during and after the rule of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a strong advocate of arts, sciences, and games like chess. For this reason, court troubadours also had a hand at the game of chess, often serving as partners in the game for noble children. Knights learned the game as well. War was often seasonal, and the fall was deemed as the most appropriate due to harvests having been stored. During the winter when their swords were idle, knights passed the time playing chess amongst themselves or with lady friends. Chess was deemed as signifying someone of high class, and as such was regularly taught to royal and noble children. According to a story, “Philomena” by Marie de France, the ideal noblewoman “... knew all sorts/Of entertaining games and sports/...Both chess and backgammon she could play.” Boys learned chess as children as well. According to the epic poem Gui of Nanteuil, boys started learning how to play at the age of six.

The second row of chess figures, the pawns – the blacksmiths, bankers, farmers, messengers, and other lower classes – were largely omitted from the picture, though it was not inconceivable for pawns to have learned the art of chess. It's fair to assume that they did, seeing as how analogies in verse (such as those written by Marie de France) as well as sermons delivered by clergy were most certainly not unheard of. Lower classes, however, were often thought to have mostly played backgammon.

As for the gender of the player, there was no restriction. Both noble men and women, as mentioned before, were often expected to learn how to play at a very early age. It is worth noting, however, that chess was often given to women during pregnancy to pass time. Chess, among other things, was also brought by Eleanor of Aquitaine when she and her first husband, Louis VII, departed on a Second Crusade. As for choice of adversaries, chess was played both with same-gender opponents as well as with the opposite gender, however a more romantic tone was implied when played with the opposite gender.

It is also worth noting that, class and gender aside, prisoners, especially noble or royal prisoners, were often allowed to play chess as a way of passing time.

Like in many other parts of Europe, there were objections to the game of chess. Most notably were the objections of the church, Louis IX (or Saint Louis), and reknowned English author, Alexander Neckam. The church had had objections to games of chance, calling them a vice, and periodically prohibited the playing of chess by the clergy. However Louis IX's aversion to games was even stronger. Upon seeing a brother playing chess at sea during a Crusade, Louis IX promptly dumped the entire set into the ocean according to chronicler Jean de Joinville. In addition to religious objections, chess had a bad reputation for provoking violence amongst its players. Legal documents in London between 1251 and 1276 include two homicides directly related to quarrels originating from chess. During his reign, Louis IX issued royal ordinances that banned the playing of chess and dice. Alexander Neckam, like many clergymen, considered chess “a waste of time, and, worse, something that often led to heated brawls.” (Yalom 97)

Despite opposition, chess had an influence on aspects of English and French culture – such as in literature. Analogies made in verse had begun to pick up allusions to chess. For example, Chretien de Troyes, in his romance Cliges, writes of a marriage that the wife is “queen/upon the board where he is king.” Gautier d'Arras also makes an analogy in Eracle, describing a king who is “checkmated” by his own wife, who had committed adultery.

In the kingdom of Eleanor of Aquitaine, chess was played openly by all genders and at least known, if not played, by all classes. Opposition, such as from Louis IX or Neckam, may have attempted to hinder the spreading and playing of chess, but ultimately to no avail. Her court traditions, carried on by many of her offspring, encouraged the circulation of chess as well as the patronage of many poets and writers who wrote about it, allowing the roots of chess to sink in deep within the culture of France and England.

Bibliography
Yalom, Marilyn. Birth of the Chess Queen A History. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print.

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Jerry Fu

Nobiltity, Poetry, and the Church: Chess in Germany

Chess first revealed itself as a component of German culture in the late 990s.  Around this time, a German-speaking monk at the Einsiedeln Monastery in Switzerland wrote “Verses on Chess.”  In addition to detailing the rules of the game, the monk also established that the game was not one of chance, in an attempt to prevent any religious opposition (Yalom 16).  This text demonstrates that although chess had become popular, the Church still had serious concerns about the game.  The monk had to offer a preemptive defense against religious objections.

The monastery of Eisiedeln had strong ties to the Germanic Ottonian emperors (Yalom 18), and chess had as strong a place in the Emperor's court as it did in the monastery.  In fact, Emperor Otto I's wife Empress Adelaide and daughter-in-law the Empress Theophano, may have served as models for the chess queen, who's role on the chessboard appeared well-established in “Verses”(Yalom 17).  Empress Theophano also may have played an important role spreading the game of the chess among the nobility of Germany.  She was the niece of a Byzantine emperor and chess was regarded as an important skill in the Byzantine court (Yalom 19-20).

The role of chess among the nobility in Germany is further reinforced in the epic Roudlieb, written around 1070 by another German-speaking monk at a monastery with imperial ties (Yalom 27).  At one point in the story, the hero is forced into a chess match against a king and after winning, is forced play again as the king and nobles bet on the match.  The hero continues to win, and when the hero refuses to take the money earned from the bets, the nobles reply, “While you are amongst us, you live as we do!” (Yalom 28).  This reveals that chess certainly had an established role among German nobility, where everyone knew the rules enough to wager and regularly comment on matches as they occurred (Yalom 28).

Despite the seeming commonality of the game, even within the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Church continued to oppose the game. In 1061 Italian bishop Petrus Damiani wrote to the pope-elect decrying the game, and these writings set the stage for a series of decrees banning chess, which were largely ignored (Yalom 29).  The moral and religious debate over chess continued centuries later, revealed in the writings of German poets.  Around 1300 the poet Hugo von Trimborg stated that “Sin and shame come easily” from a game of chess, and around 100 years later another poet stated, “You should flee from chess!” (Yalom 76).  

Though a few poets may have expressed some reservations about the game, it remained popular among the nobility.  For example, in the 1320 Manesse manuscript Otto IV of Brandenburg is shown playing chess with a courtly lady (Yalom 75).  The scene is one of revelry, with the court's musicians playing music for the two chess players.  There appears no concern of breaking any religious or moral taboos.  

The Carmina Burana, a collection of songs and poems compiled around 1230, contains a passage on chess.  This passage further reinforces chess's connection to noble life by defining the movement and qualities of the pieces in terms relating to  their real-life counterparts.  For instance, “The Knight runs rapidly” and when the king loses his wife “there is nothing left of value on the board” (Yalom 77).  The writer has no concern of any religious objection, stating, “The Bishop, with his horned head, is to be dreaded for he misleads the opponent. (Yalom 77)”

A manuscript of the Willehalm story by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach serves as a final example of the connection between chess, nobility, and religion.  In one scene, the the hero teaches a queen about religion over a chessboard, and in the another scene, the queen teaches the hero about chess (Yalom 134).  An interesting aspect of these scenes and the story is that the teaching of religion and chess are given equal weight and both done over the chessboard.  

Chess was well established as a past-time among Germanic nobility by the 1000s, and Germanic nobility may have played an important role in the game's establishment and evolution.  Perhaps more interesting, though, is how chess served as a small battleground between the nobility and the Church and how those who wrote about the game reflected these attitudes.  A monk in the 990s had to preemptively defend himself against the Church's objections, but a poet in the 13th century could openly refer to the Bishop as a deceiver.  These changes and challenges to Church authority hint at larger, more dramatic changes and challenges soon to come.

Works Cited

Yalom, Marilyn. Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. 

Chess: A Procedural Viewpoint

Jason Lee (Blog Assignment 1, topic B)

 

Throughout history, as Yalom’s Birth of the Chess Queen points out, the game of chess has both symbolized and formed various understandings of society and morality, ranging from the sacred to the profane and the elite to the common. However, it is through the rules of the game and representation of the pieces (especially the queen) that has served as a force that’s glorified Christian morals to harboring courtship. Fast forwarding over fifteen hundred years from Chess’s beginning, we are now talking about digital games and their ability to create models, representations, and social messages through rules and representation. I would like to focus on Ian Bogost’s idea of “Procedural Rhetoric” as a lens to help understand how an ancient game such as chess was able to work as a social model and representation of morality through the church, for procedural rhetoric explains how representation vs. procedurality makes a game an expressive medium, and a tool for learning and teaching social and religious ideologies.

I will attempt to summarize Ian Bogost’s  ideas on procedural rhetoric in order to frame Yalom’s investigation of Chess. Bogost, in his book Persuasive Games describes Procedural Rhetoric to be “the practice of authoring arguments through processes… its arguments are made not through the construction of words or images, but through the authorship of rules of behavior” (Bogost 29). What is important in his definition is to realize that the representational, the “words or images” are not the rhetorical tool of the game, but rather the “rules of behavior” that model the universe within the game. For Bogost, in place of words and images, “Unit Operations” serve as the unit of rhetorical argument, “each unit operation in a procedural representation is a claim about how part of the system it represents does, should, or could function” (Bogost 36). In short, what a Unit Operation really is in relation to Chess is merely a rule, or the expressive power of a single procedure within that game. In this way, Bogost’s modern theory revolves around games modeling a real world counterpart, and through the model capturing some ideal form or ideology.

In examining the ways that chess has been taken up by the church of the Middle Ages to spread moral and social values, we can see examples of how both representation and the procedure, or rules, of the game are used to form those ideologies in the same way. In the early example of the Einsiedeln Manuscript from the 990’s, there are two ways in which the game serves as a medium for modeling an social convention: the presence of a queen over a vizier and the rules stipulation that states only one queen may be present on the board at a time for each side. The change from vizier to queen is a change on the visual or representative level; no rule or procedure has changed. Rather, Yalom theorizes that the shift in representation was due to the presence of powerful female rulers being more relevant to the population in the Holy Roman Empire over the Arabic idea of a vizier: “we can speculate on the living sovereigns who might have served as models for the miniature queen. Empress Adelaide, the wife of Otto I, and Empress Theophano, the wife of Otto II, are the most probable candidates” (Yalom 19). However, the representational change results in the procedural one; as Yalom notes, “the prohibition on promoting a pawn to a queen while the original queen was still on the board was an attempt to preserve the uniqueness of the king’s wife” while “the Arabic game did not have to face that problem because a Muslim ruler could theoretically have as many viziers as he wanted” (Yalom 18). If we return to Bogost’s definition of a Unit Operation as a procedure that demonstrates what “does, could, or should” function in this representation of chess, we find that polygamy is not one of those things that can exist within that system. We see that the game’s modeling of a real world situation translates to a procedure that communicates it. This model is important, however, because the pieces on the chess board are representative of royal families and empires; the king and queen of the chess board must capture the ideal relationship between the ruling king and queen of whatever region the game is played, whether it be Italy, Germany, France, or Spain. The laity, playing chess within these regions, would be exposed to this model of the royal family and social structure and would learn about the ideal model of society from chess.

Indeed, one of Yalom’s most compelling examples of how chess was used by the church as a pedagogical tool is of Jacobus de Cessolis, a friar who used chess metaphors in his sermons. Yalom describes how he goes through describing each piece and assigning attributes on their idealized behavior, from the Queen’s companionship to the King requiring her to be “‘Chaste, docile, descended from a good family, and attentive to the upbringing of her sons’” according to de Cessolis, and Yalom pointing out further that “the words ‘chaste’ and ‘chastity’ were repeated several times to remind the audience where a woman’s greatest virtue lay” (Yalom 69-70). Not only was the chessboard used to espouse values about the proper woman, but also make people feel comfortable in their lower status in society by attributing each everyman to a specific pawn on the chessboard (Yalom 71). De Cessolis, in an attempt to espouse these values further, added interesting rules that reinforced the rhetoric. Yalom discusses one such rule:

    One can discern a few differences from Alfonso’s manuscript, the most notable    [rule] of which concerned the king. He was allowed to move two, three, or four     squares on his first move, either in a straight line or diagonally or in a combination of  the two. Interestingly, he could take the queen with him on his first and only three-square jump. This was but one of many symbolic attempts to remind the queen that she belonged to the king and was under his jurisdiction. It was up to the king to determine their “conjugal” first move. (Yalom 71)

 

Such rules may or may not have been strategically interesting, but the focus is clearly on using the game and its rules to reinforce his messages. What is interesting here is that like the Einsiedeln Manuscript, an idealized model of society gives rise to a procedure, so that the model of chessboard society matches the model that is being taught to the commoners.

When exploring how procedure and rules were used as ways to turn chess into an expressive medium, we discover that the representations and values surrounding the queen give rise inevitably to rules that must meet those claims. Yalom spends the rest of her book discussing how social changes lead to rule changes to reflect the idealized version of the world it is trying to teach and encourage, and how each little rule change and representation can make the medium express a narrative of war elephants, vizier generals, and endangered royalty, or a Christian lesson of protecting oneself from the devil through the grace of the Virgin Mary. Even within “one” game we’ve been able to express over a millennia of Asian and European history through their differences in procedure, and through the rhetoric the game taught we learn about the lessons each age of history wished to become.

 

Bibliography

 

Yalom, Marilyn. Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004.

 

Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.

Real-Queens, Chess-Queens, and Influence.

    It is obvious that women gaining power over time had a great deal of affect on Chess which resulted in the substitution of the Vizier by the Queen. But what caught my attention is the idea that the presence of the Chess-Queen on the board legitimized the presence of women in power.  As accepted, the chess board represented the king’s council, and the fact that a female piece was on the board validated female’s authority and influence. Thus, focusing on how the creation of the queen chess piece affect the females in society back then, I conclude that the chess queen was created in order to remind women that once upon a time a women came to power, with hope that for eternity women would have the guts to stand up to men and defend their right to rein, rule, and ultimately exist.

    I find it funny that the author chose to utilize a chronological timeline defined by geographical boundaries in individual chapters. To lay out the idea, I would like to quote the book and to focus on the choice of words and their placement with respect to the chronicles of both history and the book. “Remarkably, two chess queens have survived from the eleventh century. Both were carved in southern Italy, in the ivory workshops of Salerno or Amalfi between 1080 and 1100.” Just before that we covered the history of the queens Adelaide and Theophano, the wives of Otto the Great and his son Otto II respectively, from the late 990s who ruled Germania and the remainder of the Roman Empire. They were the two queens that defied the world and commanded like men, Theophano went as far as calling herself “Imperator Augustus” with all the masculinity of the word ‘emperor’ instead of ‘empress’ proving her supremacy. On the other hand, right after the quote we visited Matilda of Tuscany Constance of Hauteville, and many more women that came to rule in Europe after the 1100s, and from my perspective the strength of the German queens was embodied in the Italian chess pieces and reminded the later queens of what heights they could reach and what fortitude they could hold. It was as if the author intended the say ‘history will always remember the ruling women that passed empowering the women to come!’

    I skim though time and land on the crossings between late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century, we discover the reactions to new powers obtained by the queen of chess and the misogynistic backlash that not only the chess piece experienced but also women in general. And once again we up against the indirect influence of a simple chess piece onto society and how men in this instance decided to reach a new low with insults casted upon women, as if condemning them in real life in revenge for their undoubted and exquisite powerful representation on the chess board with the most powerful and free character.

     If I were to conclude by saying that strong women were the ultimate reason to the existence of the chess queen, than I would be allegedly disregarding the role that the chess piece played in the preservation and justification of women having power in the first place. In other words if it wasn’t for the chess queen, perhaps many known powerful queens and female figures would have been too cowardly to stand up and get noticed. Ultimately though my argument is “A simple piece within a great game could have resulted in major changes within societies and cultures worldwide!”  

SAmer Ead

Bibliography: Yalom, Marilyn. The Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.  

Chess in Spain

Spain in the 8^th to 13^th century has played a significant role in the development of chess.  This can be attributed to the influences of a mixed religious population of Muslims, Christians, and Jews and also to the influences of Spanish rulers during the period.

Much of how chess is played in Spain during this time is attributed to the underlying religious principles of the player.  This is prominent in the different representations of chess pieces from religion to religion.  For example, Muslim faith forbids the representation of humans and animals through idols “in forms as diverse as painting, sculpture, and chess pieces” (Yalom, 7).  Therefore, Muslim chess pieces are portrayed abstractly using shapes such as a throne to represent the king or an obelisk to represent the vizier, a piece with similar function to the modern day queen (Yalom, 47). 

The conflict of religion and chess pieces can also be seen in the appearance of the chess queen in Spain in the 12^th century.  The Muslim population refused to implement the chess queen, and similarly the Jewish population refused because they were prohibited from making ‘graven images’ (Yalom, 53).  However, the Jewish population was less lenient in that the chess queen made its appearance onto some Jewish chessboards.  On the other hand, players of Christian faith “both allowed and actively encouraged the representation of humans, animals, and the divine, including easily identifiable queens” (Yalom, 53).

Another contributor to the development of chess is the Spanish rulers, kings and queens, through the 8^th and 13^th century.  One of the most influential of these rulers is Spanish Queen Doña Urraca.  Yalom states that “Doña Urraca’s birth around 1080 coincided with the chess queen’s youth, and the many battles she fought as a reigning queen were mirrored on the chessboard” (Yalom, 48).  Urraca spent a good portion of her life fighting her ex-husband Alfonso I, “The Battler”, over portions of land that each claimed as their own after their divorce.  Known for her courage on the battlefield and diplomatic skills, Urraca battled off her ex-husband and other in-laws that tried to take advantage of her; a true testament to the importance of the modern day chess queen.

In addition to Queen Doña Urraca, her ex-husband, King Alfonso I of Aragón also contributed to the development of chess.  He specifically funded a book, Disciplina Clericalis, written by his court physician Petrus Alfonsi that supported the learning of chess.  It required all knights to become familiar with seven accomplishments, which included chess, making chess a “mandatory skill for Spain’s elite warriors” (Yalom, 52).

Finally, probably the most important contributors to chess from Spain, is King Alfonso X’s book, The Book of the Games of Chess, Dice, and Boards.  The book detailed how to play the game of chess and also who played the game during the period.  It stated that “board games were especially suited to women” (Yalom, 57) and to other non-working class people such as the elderly.  The book is full of illustrations some of which depict different genders and classes playing against one another in chess.  One of the most intriguing of the images is one of King Alfonso playing against a woman with no sign of nobility or high rank, an interesting interaction of social hierarchies (Yalom, 60).  In addition to the images, text is provided that specifically states what is necessary to play chess, including the size of the board and the number of pieces for each side, and how each piece can move.  King Alfonso’s book, although not the only one of its kind, is a key factor to the history of chess and its evolution across different cultures.

Bibliography

 

Yalom, M. (2005). Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.