Chess History and Reminiscences

by H. E. Bird

Edgar reigned from 958 to 975, English history referring to this incident among the amours of Edgar, make no mention of the Earl of Devonshire and his daughter being found playing chess together. Hume says Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar Earl of Devonshire and though she had been educated in the country, and had never appeared at court, she had filled all England with the reputation of her beauty.

The mission of Earl Athelwold, his deception of the king, and marriage of Elfrida follows, next the king's discovery, the murder of Athelwold by the King, and his espousal of Elfrida.

This incident with others, such as the presentation to Harold Harfagra, King of Norway of a very fine and rich chess table, and the account of and description of seventy chess men of different sizes belonging to various sets dug up in the parish of Uig, in the Isle of Lewis, are referred to by the writers as the chess allusions of the North, but Sir Frederick Madden who confines himself to the supposition of the Saxons having received the game from the Danes, rather disregards a statement of Strutt, Henry and others, based on a passage in the Ramsey chronicle that chess was introduced among the Saxons, so early as the Tenth century. Forbes however who usually agrees with Madden, sees no improbability in it or grounds for disputing, and thinks that England may have obtained its knowledge from France between the Eighth and Tenth centuries. It is curious that Forbes stops here like Madden and all other writers, he evidently knew nothing of the Roman edict of 115 B.C., and neither of them cast a thought to the earlier reigns of Alfred, Egbert, and Offa, which were contemporary with the Golden Age of Literature in Arabia and the period when chess had so long travelled from Persia to other countries, and was so well known and appreciated in Arabia; Constantinople, Spain, and among the Aquitaines as well as by the Carlovingian Monarchs. Al Walid the first Khalif noted for chess, the most powerful of the house of Umeyyah, who (through his generals Tarak and Musa invaded, conquered, and entered Spain, reigned from 705 to 715 B.C.), and comes before Offa, whose reign commenced five years after the foundation of the mighty Abbasside Dynasty, which displaced the first house of Umeyyah, and thirteen years before that of Charlemagne, with whom he was contemporary 26 years, and Egbert was 13 years. Harun Ar Rashid; of Abbasside, the Princess Irene, and the Emperor Nicephorus of Constantinople, and the successors of Harun, viz., Al Amin, Al Mamun, the Great Al Mutasem and Al Wathik (the two last contemporary with our Alfred), all cultivated and practiced chess and the strongest inference, and a far more striking one than any yet adduced, is that we got chess during the long reign of Charlemagne, and his Greek, Arabian and Spanish contemporaries, and this might well happen, for Charlemagne knew both Offa and Egbert (the latter personally), and the knowledge becomes somewhat more than a matter of inference, for the Saxon scholar Alcuin was in England from 790 to 793, on a farewell visit after being domesticated in Charlemagne's household as his treasured friend, adviser, and tutor and preceptor in the sciences for more than twenty years, and could not be otherwise than familiar with the Emperor's practice and enthusiasm for chess, in which he may to some extent have shared. Alcuin would certainly have communicated a game like this, in which he knew other civilized people were taking so much interest, to his countrymen. The connecting links of evidence which Sir F. Madden and Professor Forbes have illustrated in Athelstan's and Edgar's reigns, would have been greatly strengthened and confirmed, if they had thought of Alcuin's residence and influence at a court where chess was not only played, but talked about and corresponded upon. Charlemagne's presents included the wonderful chess men which he valued so highly, and with which we are tolerably familiar through the reports of Dr. Hyde, F. Douce, Sir F. Madden, and H. Twiss, and the engravings in Willeman's work, and by Winckelman and Art Journal. These chessmen (still preserved) were perhaps often seen by Alcuin and were possibly also shewn by Charlemagne to the youthful Egbert when in refuge at his court, and on the whole it seems unreasonable to assume that chess was unknown in England after Alcuin's last sojourn, and during Egbert's reign.

It may be also that on further consideration of the Roman edict and references to their games, and the accounts relating to the fourth century B.C., many will be indisposed to accept the dictum that Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle meant nothing more than a game of pebbles, when they referred to chess and propounded their theories as to its invention.

———

PERSIA

"Khusra Anushirawan" Naushirawan or Chosroes as he is more frequently called, being the Byzantine title applied to him, was King of Persia and reigned 48 years, from 528 to 576 as stated by some authors, or from 531 to 579 according to others. He is described also as Chosroes the Just. The receipt of chess in Persia from India early in his reign, and the great appreciation and encouragement of it, is the best attested fact in chess history, if not really the only one as to which there is entire concurrence in opinion among all writers.

The Persian and Arabian historians are unanimous that the game of chess was invented in India, some time previous to the Sixth century of our Era, and was introduced into Persia during the reign of Kisra Naushirawan, the Chosroes of the Byzantine historians, and the contemporary of Justinian, they differ only as to the time of its modification, some ascribing it to about this period, and others to that of Alexander the Great, 336 to 323 B.C.

Although several works concur in stating that chess first came to Persia from India, through Burzuvia the physician, most learned in languages with the materials of the book called Culila Dimna, quite early in Chosroes' reign, some think differently and attribute Burzuvia's mission to India and return to a late date. It is related from the Shahnama, the great Persian poem that it came from Kanoj, Kanauj, commonly written Canoge, by means of a magnificent embassy from the King of Hind, accompanied by a train of elephants with rich canopies, together with a thousand camels heavily laden, the whole escorted by a numerous and gallant army of Scindian cavalry. After depositing the various and costly presents, last of all the Ambassador displayed before the King and the astonished court, a chess board, elaborately constructed together with the chessmen, tastefully and curiously carved from solid pieces of ivory and ebony. Then the Ambassador presented a letter richly illumined, written by the hand of the Sovereign of Hind, to Naushirawan the translation of which is given as follows:

The King of Hind's address to Chosroes with the Chess