The Culture of Chess in
Medieval England and France: A Game for Everyone, a Mirror for Anything
In Western Europe
in the 12th and 13th centuries, as elsewhere, chess
served as a cultural mirror and metaphor, an instructive allegory, a marker of
status, and a delineator of different domains of social life, as well as a
plain old entertaining diversion. An
examination of chess in French and English society reveals that they continued
many of the same patterns established elsewhere in Europe
with respect to understandings of, use of, and discourse about chess. Here I consider the cultural role of chess
[assignment prompt ‘B’] in terms of who played it, who opposed it, and how it
served as a powerful metaphorical tool for reflecting and discoursing on social
life.
Class and the Structure of
Society
According to Yalom’s data, it seems that
chess was played by just about everyone – or, at least, there is no mention of
any particular group in society that did not
play chess (aside from those who opposed it on moral grounds). The royalty and nobility were active players. The princesses and queens in Yalom’s account
were expected to know how to play the game, and surrounded themselves with
chess sets and players. Marie de France,
in her poetry, listed the ability to play chess as one of the requirements of
the ideal noblewoman (Yalom 2004: 94), while Eleanor of Aquitaine – the real
specimen – populated her court in Paris with chess players and equipment
(88). Chess was such an imperative for
nobles that it became common practice to supply a chess partner to royal prisoners
(98). The heroic knights of medieval
literature often find themselves embroiled in chess matches in their stories
(85). In the real world, young
knights-in-training learned chess as part of their apprenticeships, while at
the same time providing a useful service by playing as chess partners to
members of the household and guests (95). Chess was also not limited to adults and boys,
as young girls of the gentry were expected to play as well (95).
Did commoners – peasants, tradesmen and the
like – play chess? The documents that
Yalom cites from the era make few references to chess among commoners, but this
is neither surprising nor conclusive, since peasants would not, as a rule, have
been in the practice or writing, or have had much written about themselves. Chrétien de Troyes does write, however, of not
just nobles but also “town inhabitants [playing] dice and other games of
chance; some chess” (92). It is probably
safe to assume that chess was popular among all classes, although it may not
have held the same place of honour and influence among the common folk as it
did among the nobility.
It is not clear whether the different
classes had different understandings about what chess signified. What is clear is that chess could serve as a
powerful reflection on and a metaphor for the way society was organized, and
for the gentry, it “shored up their privileged sense of self because it made
visible the three major divisions of society” – nobility at the top, followed
by ecclesiastics, and finally commoners – peasants, labourers and so on (86). The value of a piece was not just in what
moves it could make, but also in the position it represented in society
(97). Chess was a sort of miniaturized
and abridged Great Chain of Being, making visible the hierarchical structure of
society and laying it out in a regular pattern on a regular grid of squares as
if to show that it is through the preservation of this hierarchy that order is
maintained. If it served to reassure
nobles of their privileged position, perhaps it also reminded commoners of
their place in the grand scheme.
If this is the case, however, then there
seems to be a somewhat contradictory message of upward mobility in the rules of
chess. The Winchester Poem shows that
“queening” a pawn that reaches the opposite side of the board was already an
established practice by the time chess reached England (91). Yet if pawns are commoners, then a queened
pawn represents a sort of upward mobility that would upset the class
structure. The Winchester Poem does go
as far as to distinguish between a true queen (regina)
and an upstart (ferzia) (91). Still, this sounds more like it belongs in a
19th century defending the superiority of “old money” over new, and
not at all like a medieval-era admonishment for each person to know his/her
place in society. Yalom does not address
whether the upper-class in England
and France
saw the idea of queening a pawn as threatening or subversive.
Gender: The Province
of War and the Province of Domesticity
Chess was apparently played equally by males
and females, and was “one arena in which the ‘natural inferiority’ of women was
never brought up “ (95). However, this
does not mean that gender differences were erased on the chess board. On the contrary, chess was a locus for the delineation
between separate male and female social worlds.
The separation manifested itself in the understood purpose of the
game. In the hands of boys and men, it
was a game of war strategy, one that played to what were ostensibly the male’s
strengths and responsibilities – martial prowess and the ability to
strategize. For girls and women, chess was
situated solidly within the sphere of domestic life, far from the world of war
and political intrigue. A woman who
could play chess could provide good company, entertainment and
companionship. The game was not for the
purpose of military training or practice, but for socialization.
Chess did not erase the boundary between
these two social spheres, but it did serve as a bridge between them. Men and women could play chess against each
other, and although the cultural meaning of the game and the process of
learning might be different for each one, they would both be sitting at the same
table playing the same game. The chess
board also metaphorically bridges the gap between domestic and military in the
image of the king and queen standing side by side. While battle was not typically the province
of women, the chess queen was unambiguously a fighting figure, “standing beside
her husband in combat and facing the enemy à
deux” (89). According to Yalom, in
the Winchester
poem, “queens were ‘allotted to the Kings as a guard,’ in keeping with the
general view that the queen, in chess as in life, should stick close to her
husband” (91). While the queen certainly
gets a bigger taste of military action than the average medieval woman, her
role is still quite domestic – standing next to her husband. There is, however, a more subtle reversal of
roles here: the king and his soldiers
fight to defend the land and its people, including the women who stay home, and
thus the role of the military is to protect the domestic. But in chess, the role of the queen, as a
“guard”, is to protect her husband the king, so in doing her domestic duty, she
protects the leader of the military.
Opposition to Chess: the moralists weigh in
Just as elsewhere in Europe, there were
those in France and England
who not only did not play chess, but opposed its very existence. Yalom cites two London murders that arose out of chess-related
quarrels, suggesting that violent incidents such as these fueled opposition to
chess in some circles (103). Religious
leaders may also have disapproved of chess because they perceived it as
frivolous and distracting from religious duties, and because it often involved
gambling (103-4). However, attempts to
ban the game were feeble and ineffective.
Most attempts were limited internally to church clergy, and did not make
much of a difference even there (104).
Yet the monk John of Wales found a way to use
chess in service of the church, and in doing so demonstrated once more the
metaphorical power of the game. His
analogies re-appropriated the game to spread the church’s message, re-casting gameplay
in terms of life and death, sin and redemption, salvation and punishment
(104). John’s new metaphor undermined
the existing classist one by emphasizing the fact that death erases all class
differences (105).
Conclusion
The lesson here is that in medieval England
and France, chess was played by people from nearly all walks of life, but its
cultural significance and meaning could be different depending on who was
playing it, and it could be easily be reapplied to making new meanings. While the layout of pieces lends itself
strongly to a classist allegory of social organization, this metaphor could be
interpreted differently by people of different classes, and could potentially
be subverted. Even though chess was
equally the province of men and women, it played two very different roles in
the lives of each sex, belonging on the one hand to the sphere of warfare, and
on the other hand to the sphere of domesticity.
Finally, although it was hated by many religious leaders, it could just
as easily be used as an allegory to reinforce the religious message. Chess appears in many ways to resemble a
blank slate or a mirror: as it moves from place to place, it may change to
reflect the local culture, but more often people project meaning and discourse about
society onto the game, and appropriate its tremendous metaphorical power to
give shape to that discourse.
Nic
Watson
Thus
concludes my chessay. (http://instantrimshot.com/)
Bibliography:
Yalom,
M. 2004.
Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: HarperCollins.