No. 139. A Quarrel at Chess.
As I have already remarked, these romances picture to us the manners of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and not those of the Carlovingian era. The period when the game of chess was first introduced into western Europe can only be conjectured, for writers of all descriptions were so much in the habit of employing the notions belonging to their own time in relating the events of the past, that we can place no dependence on anything which is not absolute contemporary evidence. The chess-board and men so long preserved in the treasury of St. Denis, and said to have belonged to Charlemagne, were, I think, probably, not older than the eleventh century, and appear to have had a Byzantine origin. If the game of chess had been known at the court of Charlemagne, I cannot but think that we should have found some distinct allusion to it. The earliest mention of this game that we know is found in a letter from Damianus, cardinal bishop of Ostia, to Alexander II., who was elected to the papacy in 1061, and enjoyed it till 1073. Damianus tells the pope how he was travelling with a bishop of Florence, when, “having arrived in the evening at a hostel, I withdrew,” he says, “into the cell of a priest, while he remained with the crowd of travellers in the spacious house. In the morning, I was informed by my servant that the aforesaid bishop had been playing at the game of chess; which information, like an arrow, pierced my heart very acutely. At a convenient hour, I sent for him, and said in a tone of severe reproof, ‘The hand is stretched out, the rod is ready for the back of the offender.’ ‘Let the fault be proved,’ said he, ‘and penance shall not be refused.’ ‘Was it well,’ I rejoined, ‘was it worthy of the character you bear, to spend the evening in the vanity of chess-play (in vanitate scachorum), and defile the hands and tongue, which ought to be the mediator between man and the Deity? Are you not aware that, by the canonical law, bishops, who are dice-players, are ordered to be deposed?’ He, however, making himself a shield of defence from the difference in the names, said that dice was one thing, and chess another; consequently that the canon only forbade dice, but that it tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, ‘Chess,’ I said, ‘is not named in the text, but the general term of dice comprehends both the games. Wherefore, since dice are prohibited, and chess is not expressly mentioned, it follows, without doubt, that both kinds of play are included under one term, and equally condemned?’” This occurred in Italy, and it is evident from it that the game of chess was then well known there, though I think we have a right to conclude from it, that it had not been long known. There appears to be little room for doubting, that chess was, like so many other mediæval practices, an oriental invention, that the Byzantine Greeks derived it from the Saracens, and that from them it came by way of Italy to France.
The knowledge of the game of chess, however, seems to have been brought more directly from the East by the Scandinavian navigators, to whom such a means of passing time in their distant voyages, and in their long nights at home, was most welcome, and who soon became extraordinarily attached to it, and displayed their ingenuity in elaborately carving chess-men in ivory (that is, in the ivory of the walrus), which seem to have found an extensive market in other countries. In the year 1831, a considerable number of these carved ivory chess-men were found on the coast of the Isle of Lewis, probably the result of some shipwreck in the twelfth century, for to that period they belong. They formed part of at least seven sets, and had therefore probably been the stock of a dealer. Some of them were obtained by the British Museum, and a very learned and valuable paper on them was communicated by sir Frederic Madden to the Society of Antiquaries, and printed in the twenty-fourth volume of the Archæologia. Some of the best of them, however, remained in private hands, and have more recently passed into the rich museum of the late lord Londesborough. We give here two groups of these curious chess-men, taken from the collection of lord Londesborough, and from those in the British Museum as engraved in the volume of the Archæologia just referred to. The first group, forming our cut [No. 140], consists of a king (1), from the collection of lord Londesborough, and a queen (2), bishop (3), and knight (4), all from the Archæologia; and the second group ([No. 141]) presents us with the warriors on foot, to which the Icelanders gave the name of hrokr, and to which sir Frederic Madden gives the English name of warders, one of them (5) from lord Londesborough’s collection, the other (6) from the British Museum. The rest are pawns, all from the latter collection; they are generally plain and octagonal, as in the group to the right (7), but were sometimes ornamented, as in the case of the other example (8).
No. 140. Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century.
It will be seen at once that in name and character these chess-men are nearly identical with those in common use, although in costume they are purely Scandinavian. The king sits in the position, with his sword across his knee, and his hand ready to draw it, which is described as characteristic of royalty in the old northern poetry. The queen holds in her hand a drinking horn, in which at great festivals the lady of the household, of whatever rank, was accustomed to serve out the ale or mead to the guests. The bishops are some seated, and others standing, but all distinguished by the mitre, crosier, and episcopal costume. The knights are all on horseback, and are covered with characteristic armour. The armed men on foot, just mentioned by the name of warders, were peculiar to the Scandinavian set of chess-men, and supplied the place of the rocks, or rooks, in the mediæval game, and of the modern castle.
No. 141. Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century.
Several of the chess-men had indeed gone through more than one modification in their progress from the East. The Arabs and Persians admitted no female among the persons on their chess-board, and the piece which we call the queen was with them the pherz (vizier or councillor). The oriental name, under the form fers, ferz, or ferce, in Latin ferzia, was long preferred in the middle ages, though certainly as early as the twelfth century the original character of the piece had been changed for that of a queen, and the names fers and queen became synonymous. It is hardly necessary to say that a bishop would not be found on a Saracenic chess-board. This piece was called by the Persians and Arabs pil or phil, meaning an elephant, under the form of which animal it was represented. This name was also preserved in its transmission to the west, and with the Arab article prefixed became alfil, or more commonly alfin, which was again softened down into aufin, the usual name of the piece in the old French and English writers. The character of the bishop must have been adopted very early among the Christians, and it is found under that character among the Northerns, and in England. Such, however, was not the case everywhere. The Russians and Swedes have preserved the original name of the elephant. In Italy and France this piece was sometimes represented as an archer; and at an early period in the latter country, from a supposed confusion of the Arabic fil with the French fol, it was sometimes called by the latter name, and represented as a court jester. Roc, the name given by the Saracens to the piece now called the castle, meant apparently a hero, or champion, Persian rokh; the name was preserved in the middle ages, but the piece seems to have been first represented under the character of an elephant, and it was no doubt, from the tower which the elephant carried on its back, that our modern form originated. The Icelanders seem alone to have adopted the name in its original meaning, for with them, as shown in cut No. 141, the hrokr is represented as a warrior on foot.