Chess in the Middle Ages

In The Power of the Wouivre, Guidaloste and his best friend Antonio like to play dice and chess - both popular games in the 1200s, despite being condemned by the Church for encouraging gambling. Remarkably, chess has remained popular to the present day, and even appears to be gaining in popularity in the last few years. I imagine many of you play, especially with the rise of online chess apps. So, just how different is the chess of now to the chess of 1000 years ago?

From the chaturanga of India, to the shatranj of Persia, Muslims brought a rough version of the game into Al-Andalus (the original arabic name for the Iberian Peninsular covering most of Spain, Portugal, and some of Southern France), and Sicily. From there it spread into the rest of Europe where it evolved into a closer version of the game that's played today. However, this transformation didn't fully occur until around the 16th century, so the chess that Guidaloste plays is probably a cross between the original chaturanga and modern chess. In Indian epic poetry, the word chaturanga means army, or 4 divisions of the military, and the pieces were representative of this. So, the original game was basically a battle strategy game. It consisted of the king, his advisor, or vizir (think Jaffar in Aladdin), the cavalry, the elephant division, the chariots, and the foot soldiers. It was definitely being played in Fiorenza (medieval Florence) by the early millennium (that's 1000, not 2000!) as the bishop of Florence was denounced by a Benedictine monk, Peter Damian (later Saint) in 1061 for playing chess despite its perceived evil effects on society. Medieval European chess pieces were not white and black as they are today. The original Indian version had black and red pieces but when it was introduced into Europe they adopted white and red. The Italians called it scacchi and it would have been made up as follows:

1. The King, as now.

2. The Queen (evolved from the Vizir) was not able to move anywhere on the board. Originally the piece just followed the king as his advisor and, in medieval Europe, was seen as the King's consort (i.e. Queen) rather than his advisor. It could only, therefore, move one space diagonally in any direction. Her "power" on the chess board didn't evolve until towards the end of the 15th Century in Spain with the rise of Queen Isabella I.

3. Knight, as now.

4. Bishop - the Elephant pieces of shatranj were gradually abandoned in Europe as, not being a European animal, many would never have seen such an creature. The Persian word for elephant was alfil, and in Italy, the word alfiere was adopted, which translates as standard bearer. Fun fact - the word bishop is used in England because the abstract shape of the Muslim game had a split in the top which was reminiscent of a bishop's mitre (hat). This piece, like the Queen, was not as powerful as it is today.

5. Rook - this evolved from the Chariot piece. The reason we call it Rook stems from the original Persian word rokh. In Italian this would have been rocco, but they now call it torre (or Tower). The muslim chariots were heavily fortified, more like mobile siege towers than Roman chariots so the word Tower or Castle may have stemmed from the fact that ironically, despite the Bishop piece being an elephant in the original game and being phased out for lack of knowledge about elephants, the Rook was depicted in a 16th century poem as a tower on the back of an elephant! On Guidaloste's chess board the Rook was the only piece that had not yet evolved from the abstract designs of the chaturanga pieces so it would have resembled an upside down V, or a pair of horns arching away from each other. This was the most powerful piece on the board in Guidaloste's day.

6. Pawn or pedone was the foot-soldier and as such has always been the weakest piece on the board.

As the game was in the early stage of evolution from its original roots, it is very likely that there were a number of variations on the game at the time.