About chess - or the other inspiration for my view on culture

Not much is known
Of early days of chess
Beyond a fairly vague report
That fifteen hundred years ago
Two princes fought, though brothers
For a Hindu throne

~ Chess, Story of Chess

The Eddan Queen
Photo: Historiska museet i Lund

I read a blog post from 2014 on the blog of the contract archaeological company then called Riksantikvarieämbetets uppdragsverksamhet (Now Arkeologerna.). It was about a chess piece from the 13th century turning up at the excavation of the Eddan block in Linköping in Östergötland, Sweden. Therefore I think it would be perfect opportunity to tell you about the history of chess and why I think it is perfect for understanding both how cultures interact and what the game can tell us about early Medieval Europe. In many ways it is a continuation of the entry I made a while ago about the Sami hat.

My grandfather taught me to play chess when I was five. Even though the blog post about the Eddan Queen is very imformative, there are some problems with it. For example it uses a direct translation to Swedish of the English names of the pieces and I will tell you why I find this problematic later on in this post, but first som back story.

Chess originated in India and is said to have been spread to Europe via the Arabs in the early Middle Ages. The oldest known written sources of the game and its rules is Versus de scachis dating to c. AD 1000. The blog post about the Eddan Queen says that it probably came to Scandinavia during the 12th century. However, as always with written sources, I think there are reasons to be cautious saying this dates the first use of the game in either Europe or Scandinavia. It might have been used for quite some time before that, just that no one had thought about writing it all down.

Part of the Lewis chess set.
Photo: National Museums Scotland

The Silk Road was, after all, very important to the Vikings and they tended to pick up whatever they liked and brought back home to use it as their own. An indication of when the game was first introduced in Sweden, might the name of the pieces actually provide wherefore I found it sad to see that a direct translation of the English names was used in the blog post about the Eddan Queen.

Like so often when different cultures interact and pick something up from one another, changes need to be made to accommodate the new social context. This also happened to the chess set. In the blog post about the Eddan Queen, it was explained that the army of the Indian and Arabic game turned into representations of the social classes in the European feudalistic society. I, myself, would actually not say that that was really the case.

The Medieval army of the European countries actually did consist of both kings, pawns, knights and bishops and sometimes even women (like queens). However, there were ceveral changes in the pieces collection anyway. The king kept his title, but his advisor, the vizier of the Indian/Arabic version turned into a queen. In Swedish she is normally known as Dam (direct translation: Lady). The battle elephant turned into a bishop in the English version of the game. In Sweden those same pieces are known as Löpare (direct translation: Runner) and the horses where never turned into knights as in the English version. The name normally used in the Swedish version is an older term for horse: Springare. In the Indian/Arabic chess, there were also two wagons that became castles in English and Torn (towers) in Swedish and also the foot soldiers turned into pawns (This is actually the only piece that can be directly translated in Swedish: Bönder.).

Why is this so important to me? Because chess is actually an excellent way to see how far Christianity had spread throughout Europe and which of the "classical social classes" of the Medieval period that had been established at the time the game was introduced.

More stilistic chess pieces

England seems to have already had an established medieval society with knights, kings and queens and the Church seems to have had much more influence there as evident by the bishop's name, than it had in Swede, when the game was introduced there. The names of the pieces reflect this.

The rules of the games also changed when it came to Europe, giving the new queen a much more active role in the games. Today she is the most valuable and piece.

But how about the Arabs? Did they find a need to change the game from its Indian roots? Yes, they did. The older, more naturalistic pieces contradicted the Quran's prohibition of portraying humans and animals. Because of this, the game pieces were transformed to more abstract versions. Today you can find them both while looking for chess sets.

King in a set of game pieces for Hnefatafl
from burial BJ750, Hemlanden Birka, Björkö, Mälaren, Sweden
Photo by SHM 2001-09-26

Another board game that seems to have been popular among the Vikings is Hnefatafl and I just have to show you the one to the left from Birka since I think the pieces are so beautiful. Game pieces turn up in elite Viking burials from time to time. There are some similarities to Chess with both being played on a checkered board and both have the purpose of defending a special piece called "king" which, just like in chess is actually pretty weak. An interesting aspect considering both games illustrates Medieval power structures...


Pictures were borrowed from here, here and here and here.