00:01:13.033 --> 00:01:14.933
Tracing the history of chess

00:01:14.933 --> 00:01:17.200
is a notoriously difficult task.

00:01:17.766 --> 00:01:22.433
Early manuscripts containing
explicit references to the game are rare,

00:01:22.433 --> 00:01:26.100
and those that we do
possess are inevitably copies

00:01:26.466 --> 00:01:31.533
typically created many centuries later.
In order to put the pieces together,

00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:36.133
our only option is to slowly
and cautiously combine insights

00:01:36.133 --> 00:01:41.133
from etymology, archeology
and ancient literary sources.

00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:44.800
And even then,
we must always be conscious of the fact

00:01:44.966 --> 00:01:47.033
that we might have gone off
track somewhere.

00:01:48.366 --> 00:01:52.533
Our story begins in northern India,
not with chess,

00:01:52.733 --> 00:01:57.266
or even the precursor to chess,
but simply the familiar square board.

00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.000
Sources
mentioned two primary types: an 8x8

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.500
board of 64 squares
called an ashtapada, and

00:02:06.700 --> 00:02:08.666
another 10x10 board

00:02:08.666 --> 00:02:13.966
called a dasapada, both of which scholars
believe to be unshackled

00:02:14.233 --> 00:02:18.166
and used to play some sort of dice
game on.

00:02:18.466 --> 00:02:21.600
From there, we believe that
the originators of chess decided to use

00:02:21.600 --> 00:02:25.800
the 8x8 board, the ashtapada,
for their new war game,

00:02:26.200 --> 00:02:30.333
which they explicitly called
something else in order to distinguish it

00:02:30.533 --> 00:02:34.433
from the older dice game with which
the ashtapada had been associated.

00:02:35.133 --> 00:02:38.166
They chose the obvious name of chaturanga,

00:02:38.366 --> 00:02:42.566
literally meaning four-limbed,
which had long been a standard Sanskrit

00:02:42.566 --> 00:02:46.733
reference for the ancient Indian army
that was composed of four distinct

00:02:46.733 --> 00:02:50.733
components: foot soldiers, elephants,

00:02:51.533 --> 00:02:53.833
cavalry and chariots.

00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:57.533
To the pieces
representing each of these four forces,

00:02:57.833 --> 00:03:00.366
they added the king and his minister;

00:03:00.900 --> 00:03:03.900
with the object of the game
to capture the opponent's king.

00:03:04.500 --> 00:03:08.133
For those early inventors, presumably,
naming the game

00:03:08.133 --> 00:03:12.266
“chaturanga”, was effectively equivalent
to calling it “war”.

00:03:13.833 --> 00:03:14.500
Very few

00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:18.200
explicit early Indian literary references
to the game exist,

00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:22.466
with the generally recognized
starting point coming from a passage

00:03:22.466 --> 00:03:25.633
in the Harshacharita,
or “Deeds of Harsha”,

00:03:25.966 --> 00:03:31.066
a biography of the North Indian King
Harsha Vardhana, written by the celebrated

00:03:31.066 --> 00:03:34.133
Sanskrit poet Banabhatta, or Bana,

00:03:34.633 --> 00:03:37.300
who spent many years at his court.

00:03:37.300 --> 00:03:40.100
Harsha’s
kingdom was known far and wide to be a

00:03:40.100 --> 00:03:43.700
haven of tolerance, prosperity
and good governance;

00:03:44.166 --> 00:03:47.466
and his court attracted
many leading artists and writers,

00:03:47.700 --> 00:03:51.133
such as Bana, together
with many foreign travelers,

00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:55.300
including the seventh century
Chinese writer, Xuanzang.

00:03:55.300 --> 00:04:00.166
In his glowing tribute of the singularly
peaceful climate of Harsha’s realm,

00:04:00.700 --> 00:04:03.533
Bana invokes a series of vivid metaphors,

00:04:04.100 --> 00:04:07.900
such as, “Only bees quarrel
when collecting dues,”

00:04:08.433 --> 00:04:11.766
before revealingly concluding with, “Only

00:04:11.766 --> 00:04:14.866
ashtapadas
teach the position of the chaturanga.”

00:04:15.766 --> 00:04:18.500
This was the first, but hardly the last,

00:04:18.533 --> 00:04:22.600
known invocation of chess as a substitute,
if not

00:04:22.600 --> 00:04:25.700
training for, actual war.

00:04:32.033 --> 00:04:34.833
From India, the game chaturanga

00:04:34.900 --> 00:04:37.700
spread westwards into Sasanian Persia,

00:04:38.066 --> 00:04:40.133
becoming the Persian “Chatrang”.

00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:43.200
That much we know.

00:04:43.200 --> 00:04:45.400
How, when and where, however,

00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:48.600
remains incredibly murky.

00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:50.700
But we do have some clues.

00:04:50.700 --> 00:04:55.200
Two Middle Persian texts
explicitly cite chatrang as one of the key

00:04:55.200 --> 00:04:58.533
skills that an upper-class
Sasanian would possess.

00:04:59.066 --> 00:05:04.066
In “Khusro and the Page”,
a noble page who's been orphaned petitions

00:05:04.066 --> 00:05:08.033
the great King Khusro
I to look after him, citing

00:05:08.033 --> 00:05:13.133
his many virtues: from jousting skills,
to astronomical knowledge,

00:05:13.433 --> 00:05:17.000
to being ahead of his peers
in playing chess and backgammon

00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:18.033
- chatrang and nard in Middle Persian.

00:05:18.033 --> 00:05:23.433
And in “The Deeds of Ardashir”, a

00:05:24.866 --> 00:05:28.366
glowing biography of the founder
of the Sasanian dynasty,

00:05:28.633 --> 00:05:34.300
Ardashir I, the young future king
is specifically portrayed as being,

00:05:34.300 --> 00:05:38.366
“...more victorious
than all of the other princes in polo,

00:05:38.766 --> 00:05:41.033
horsemanship, chatrang.

00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:44.900
nard and other cultural activities.”

00:05:45.866 --> 00:05:47.100
Now, given that

00:05:47.100 --> 00:05:51.100
Ardashir I died back in the year 240,
you might

00:05:51.100 --> 00:05:55.100
well think that this would be evidence
of a much older lineage for chess.

00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:57.833
But it turns out that that's not the case,

00:05:58.366 --> 00:06:02.500
as scholars date The Deeds of Artashir
to the time of Khusro

00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:05.233
I’s grandson, Khusro II,

00:06:05.566 --> 00:06:08.666
who reigned from 590 to 628.

00:06:09.100 --> 00:06:11.900
History, unfortunately, is like that.

00:06:12.300 --> 00:06:15.566
Nothing stops people
from making up stories about their heroes

00:06:15.666 --> 00:06:17.800
who lived centuries ago.

00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:21.200
But one thing that's clear
is that both of these texts

00:06:21.333 --> 00:06:26.166
point to the strong cultural role
that games played in the Sasanian world,

00:06:26.166 --> 00:06:31.800
reflecting prevailing societal norms
while describing the very real activities

00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:35.366
that young, noble warriors were engaged in
as a means

00:06:35.366 --> 00:06:39.000
of training and education.

00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.200
The idea is that games

00:06:42.533 --> 00:06:48.933
are part of the education of the children;
and that through games,

00:06:49.200 --> 00:06:54.133
through intelligent games,
you can teach a series of values,

00:06:54.133 --> 00:06:58.133
a series of concepts, which can be studied

00:06:58.133 --> 00:07:01.900
or learned in a more efficient way

00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:06.300
through the act of playing.

00:07:07.233 --> 00:07:07.800
So, we have

00:07:07.800 --> 00:07:11.100
good evidence that by the latter
part of the sixth century,

00:07:11.700 --> 00:07:14.833
chess was a game that any cultivated
Sasanian noble

00:07:14.833 --> 00:07:17.833
was expected to play
with some degree of competence.

00:07:18.633 --> 00:07:20.566
As was backgammon.

00:07:20.566 --> 00:07:25.500
In the late Sasanian Empire, chess
and backgammon were consistently linked.

00:07:25.866 --> 00:07:29.500
And nowhere is this more evident
than in the most revealing

00:07:29.500 --> 00:07:32.866
chess related literary reference of all
from that era:

00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:38.533
the Middle Persian myth, “On
the Explanation of Chess and Backgammon”.

00:07:39.433 --> 00:07:42.600
Once again,
the setting is the late sixth century,

00:07:42.900 --> 00:07:45.600
when the great Sasanian King of Kings,
Khusro

00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:48.366
I, is approached by an Indian king

00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:51.600
who challenges him
to a sort of intellectual duel.

00:07:52.400 --> 00:07:56.266
“We have invented
this wonderful game,”says the Indian king,

00:07:56.666 --> 00:08:00.933
showing him
32 priceless emerald and ruby pieces, “and

00:08:00.933 --> 00:08:05.300
if you're as smart and as wise as you
claim to be, then you should be able

00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:09.866
to figure out how to play - in which case,
we will duly pay you tribute.

00:08:10.266 --> 00:08:14.266
But if you can't,
then you have to pay us tribute instead.”

00:08:15.033 --> 00:08:20.200
The Persians are initially at sea
until the king's wisest adviser enters

00:08:20.200 --> 00:08:23.233
the fray and saves the day, triumphantly

00:08:23.233 --> 00:08:27.233
declaring that he will not only deduce
the rules of this new game,

00:08:27.433 --> 00:08:32.733
but will invent an additional game
that the Indians won't be able to solve.

00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:36.633
Sure enough -
this is a Persian story after all -

00:08:36.633 --> 00:08:39.633
he promptly deciphers
the rules of this new game,

00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:43.733
which the Persians call chatrang,
before thrashing

00:08:43.733 --> 00:08:46.900
the Indians three times in a row at it
for good measure.

00:08:47.700 --> 00:08:51.100
And then he presents them
with the new game of backgammon -

00:08:51.566 --> 00:08:56.733
which, as we've said before, the Persians
call nard after Ardashir I, the

00:08:57.700 --> 00:09:00.066
founder of the Sassanian dynasty.

00:09:00.066 --> 00:09:03.000
And the Indians are completely stymied.

00:09:05.633 --> 00:09:08.300
To modern ears, this sounds very odd.

00:09:08.766 --> 00:09:10.966
Of course, the story is absurd.

00:09:10.966 --> 00:09:13.700
How on earth
could anyone reasonably be expected

00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:17.733
to figure out the rules of chess
simply by examining the pieces?

00:09:18.100 --> 00:09:20.700
And it's also ridiculously nationalistic.

00:09:21.233 --> 00:09:24.433
But backgammon over chess?

00:09:24.966 --> 00:09:27.066
What's that about?

00:09:27.533 --> 00:09:32.500
Once again, cultural context is key,
as backgammon is described

00:09:32.500 --> 00:09:36.600
as being explicitly linked
to essential notions of fate and destiny,

00:09:36.700 --> 00:09:40.600
so integral to the Zoroastrian culture
of Sasanian Persia.

00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:43.800
The game is portrayed in an overtly

00:09:43.800 --> 00:09:47.666
cosmological context, with the board
representing the Earth,

00:09:48.166 --> 00:09:50.566
the 12 mirrored points for the counters

00:09:50.833 --> 00:09:53.100
reflecting the 12 constellations,

00:09:53.900 --> 00:09:57.933
and the numbers on opposite
sides of each die always adding up

00:09:57.933 --> 00:10:02.200
to the important number seven
that reflects the central heavenly bodies:

00:10:02.500 --> 00:10:06.900
the five visible planets
- Mercury, Venus, Mars,

00:10:07.300 --> 00:10:11.333
Jupiter and Saturn -
plus the sun and the moon.

00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:15.300
But it's important to appreciate
that the central thrust of this

00:10:15.300 --> 00:10:21.000
myth was not that chess is simply inferior
to backgammon, but that both games

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:24.633
are essential to appropriately train
the warrior youth at the time.

00:10:25.300 --> 00:10:30.333
Chess would teach military strategy
and tactics, while backgammon

00:10:30.333 --> 00:10:34.400
would reinforce the overriding
role of destiny in our lives.

00:10:36.233 --> 00:10:38.266
There are religious

00:10:38.700 --> 00:10:42.266
ideas, but it is clear that this work

00:10:42.500 --> 00:10:45.566
has been composed for a public.

00:10:46.133 --> 00:10:49.166
Who was the public for this novel?

00:10:49.300 --> 00:10:53.266
This is not a novel
for a group of priests,

00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:58.500
who stay within a temple,
reciting and performing rituals

00:10:58.500 --> 00:11:03.433
all day long; they have no time
to play chess or backgammon.

00:11:03.433 --> 00:11:07.200
So my idea is that this is a work composed

00:11:07.900 --> 00:11:10.366
in the 6th or 7th century.

00:11:10.366 --> 00:11:14.000
So, the end of the kingdom of Khusro I,

00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:17.500
or more probably the

00:11:18.666 --> 00:11:21.133
kingdom of Khusro II,
in which the bravery,

00:11:21.266 --> 00:11:24.800
the glory of Iran was felt

00:11:24.900 --> 00:11:27.933
as a strong sentiment
for a military class.

00:11:28.500 --> 00:11:34.233
So, you have to imagine young boys
belonging to noble families

00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:40.233
who, during the period
in which they are not serving in the army,

00:11:42.066 --> 00:11:44.400
enjoying events:

00:11:44.800 --> 00:11:48.100
dancers, music, eating fruits and so on.

00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:50.466
And doing what? Playing.

00:11:51.166 --> 00:11:55.000
Playing chess, because chess teaches

00:11:55.000 --> 00:12:00.033
you strategy: how to use the cavlary,
how to use the infantry,

00:12:00.033 --> 00:12:04.100
how to use the other parts of the army.

00:12:04.466 --> 00:12:07.833
Then you have to study the meaning,

00:12:07.866 --> 00:12:13.500
the rationale, backgammon,
because backgammon compels you

00:12:14.333 --> 00:12:17.800
to use a strategy, but also to be prudent

00:12:18.166 --> 00:12:21.400
with events connected with destiny.

00:12:21.866 --> 00:12:26.333
Because you can arrange something very

00:12:28.233 --> 00:12:31.766
efficiently, but a bad roll of the dice

00:12:31.766 --> 00:12:34.500
will destroy your army completely.

00:12:35.233 --> 00:12:37.566
Every text has a public.

00:12:37.566 --> 00:12:39.766
This is not a text for priests.

00:12:39.766 --> 00:12:43.200
This is a text for a young,

00:12:43.766 --> 00:12:47.000
noble, rich, educated

00:12:47.233 --> 00:12:52.366
youth, who is in resonance

00:12:52.433 --> 00:12:54.866
with the values here represented.

00:12:56.133 --> 00:13:00.600
From this key Pahlavi text,
we know the names, at least,

00:13:00.866 --> 00:13:03.900
of the different pieces
of ancient Sasanian chatrang:

00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:08.433
the shah or king, the farzin

00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:12.766
or counselor, the pil or elephant,

00:13:13.866 --> 00:13:15.200
the asp

00:13:15.466 --> 00:13:19.066
or horse, the rook or chariot,

00:13:19.933 --> 00:13:22.566
and the piyadah, or foot soldier.

00:13:23.400 --> 00:13:26.566
But we're told nothing specific
about how the pieces moved

00:13:27.100 --> 00:13:29.466
or the actual rules of the game.

00:13:29.466 --> 00:13:32.566
That will have to wait
for the first Arabic text to appear

00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:36.300
hundreds of years later,
a century or two after the Muslim

00:13:36.300 --> 00:13:39.000
conquest of Persia
in the mid-seventh century.

00:13:39.400 --> 00:13:42.666
And there's naturally
no way of knowing with any certainty

00:13:42.833 --> 00:13:43.566
to what extent

00:13:43.566 --> 00:13:48.500
the authors of those works were playing
precisely the same game as the Sasanian

00:13:48.533 --> 00:13:52.200
who played schatrang,hundreds of years
before them, let alone

00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:54.566
the Indians who played chaturanga decades,
if not centuries, before them.

00:13:58.533 --> 00:14:01.700
Games,
like everything else in human societies,

00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.500
are in constant flux.

00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:07.633
Games have to be studied

00:14:07.633 --> 00:14:13.433
according to an historical perception,
so games change;

00:14:13.900 --> 00:14:17.966
and you cannot a priori assume

00:14:18.266 --> 00:14:23.466
that the game you know
and you play today is exactly the same.

00:14:23.466 --> 00:14:27.566
as it was played two millennia ago.

00:14:29.166 --> 00:14:29.733
But however

00:14:29.733 --> 00:14:32.033
those ancient Persians played strong,

00:14:32.866 --> 00:14:35.200
their language has become forever embedded

00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:38.200
in the game with the Persian cry “shat

00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:40.733
mat” “The king is helpless”,

00:14:41.400 --> 00:14:43.533
eventually turning into our modern

00:14:44.233 --> 00:14:50.833
“checkmate”.

00:14:53.566 --> 00:14:55.133
The Sasanian empire

00:14:55.133 --> 00:14:59.766
lasted until the mid-seventh century,
when it was taken over by Arab conquerors,

00:15:00.300 --> 00:15:04.933
whereupon chess entered the Islamic world.

00:15:05.133 --> 00:15:09.800
But before we examine this next, highly
formative, stage of the game's development

00:15:09.800 --> 00:15:12.933
from the beginning of the Abbasid
Caliphate in the mid-eighth century,

00:15:13.233 --> 00:15:16.333
it's time
to turn to the question of chess pieces.

00:15:16.733 --> 00:15:21.266
These are typically divided
into two types: figural and abstract,

00:15:21.733 --> 00:15:26.133
with two major archeological finds
helping us appreciate the transition

00:15:26.133 --> 00:15:29.900
from one to the other during chess’
first few centuries.

00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:33.433
We don't have a lot

00:15:33.433 --> 00:15:36.366
of archeological evidence at all.

00:15:36.966 --> 00:15:37.800
We have

00:15:38.733 --> 00:15:41.400
two important finds: one of

00:15:41.400 --> 00:15:44.600
figural pieces that was discovered

00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:49.966
in Afrasiyab, which is the pre-Islamic
settlement of Samarkand,

00:15:50.433 --> 00:15:54.233
which date
to around the seventh century A.D.

00:15:54.233 --> 00:15:58.366
And a second important find
that was found in eastern Iran in a place

00:15:58.366 --> 00:16:04.266
called Nishapur, which dates to around 100
to 150 years later.

00:16:04.266 --> 00:16:08.600
And they're important
because one is in a fully figural form;

00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:13.533
the second find is in a fully developed
abstract form.

00:16:15.033 --> 00:16:18.433
The archeologist
who discovered them, Professor Buryakov,

00:16:18.866 --> 00:16:21.766
dated them
no later than the seventh century,

00:16:21.766 --> 00:16:24.933
based on ceramics
that he discovered with them.

00:16:25.400 --> 00:16:28.900
Their significance lies
in the fact that there are seven of them,

00:16:29.400 --> 00:16:33.200
and they clearly appear
to be early chess pieces

00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:36.133
rather than some other sort of game piece.

00:16:36.666 --> 00:16:39.533
We have an elephant - it's very damaged,

00:16:39.533 --> 00:16:43.466
but it's clearly depicts an elephant
with a rider on its head.

00:16:44.266 --> 00:16:48.533
There are two pieces that appear
to be chariots drawn by horses,

00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:52.533
and these are early
representations of the rook.

00:16:53.233 --> 00:16:57.266
There are two foot soldiers,
which are small warriors

00:16:57.566 --> 00:17:00.066
holding a small round shield
in the left hand

00:17:00.066 --> 00:17:03.600
and brandishing a sword
or club in the right hand.

00:17:04.200 --> 00:17:08.000
And there are also two horsemen,
which represent knights.

00:17:08.666 --> 00:17:11.433
So, it's
really finding all these pieces together

00:17:11.433 --> 00:17:16.300
that allows us to say, “Yes,
these do look like early chess pieces,”

00:17:16.300 --> 00:17:21.466
rather than simply being a child's toy
or some other kind of figurine.

00:17:21.966 --> 00:17:24.566
This find at Afrasiyab gives us

00:17:24.800 --> 00:17:28.333
a clear idea
of the sort of pieces might have been used

00:17:28.800 --> 00:17:32.533
at the Sasanian Court in the sixth century
and the seventh century

00:17:32.766 --> 00:17:36.400
before the Arab
conquest of Iran in Central Asia.

00:17:38.033 --> 00:17:39.000
The Afrasiyab

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:41.733
chessmen
were a hugely significant discovery,

00:17:42.066 --> 00:17:46.733
but over time, a handful of other
figural pieces have also come to light.

00:17:47.166 --> 00:17:49.900
Yet for anyone
interested in early chess pieces,

00:17:50.100 --> 00:17:53.966
those found at Afrasiyab
are still very much the benchmark,

00:17:54.233 --> 00:17:58.800
naturally leading us to question
where exactly they were made.

00:18:00.533 --> 00:18:03.333
Well, I think what we can say right away
is they're not Indian

00:18:03.733 --> 00:18:06.800
because you would expect
a much higher level

00:18:06.800 --> 00:18:09.633
of sculptural quality.

00:18:09.900 --> 00:18:13.066
Those Afrasiyab pieces,
you can see what they're meant

00:18:13.066 --> 00:18:15.833
to represent - it's pretty clear.

00:18:16.600 --> 00:18:18.166
But they are very, very crude.

00:18:18.166 --> 00:18:20.633
The human figures, for example,
have got no necks.

00:18:20.633 --> 00:18:24.533
Their heads are sometimes
cut flat at the top,

00:18:24.800 --> 00:18:27.500
the facial features
are very crudely incised.

00:18:27.766 --> 00:18:31.566
So I think we can say
they were produced by local craftsmen,

00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:35.200
even though they're made of quite a noble
and expensive material:

00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:40.100
they are certainly made of elephant ivory,
but probably off-cuts,

00:18:40.100 --> 00:18:43.400
leftovers from some other fancier object.

00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:48.466
The other thing I would say
is that in all of the figural pieces

00:18:48.466 --> 00:18:52.466
that I've seen,
the animals tend to be better

00:18:52.700 --> 00:18:56.500
carved than the human figures,
which I think is also quite interesting.

00:18:56.500 --> 00:19:02.000
I don't know exactly what that tells us
about the milieu, but it's certainly not

00:19:03.600 --> 00:19:05.633
an artistic milieu where

00:19:05.633 --> 00:19:08.266
reproducing the human form in a three

00:19:08.266 --> 00:19:11.766
dimensional way is well-established.

00:19:12.733 --> 00:19:15.333
The second very important archeological

00:19:15.333 --> 00:19:18.666
find of chess pieces was at Nishapur,

00:19:18.700 --> 00:19:22.600
which is in northeastern
Iran in Khorasan province.

00:19:23.033 --> 00:19:28.533
And these were discovered in the 1930s
by a team from the Metropolitan Museum

00:19:28.533 --> 00:19:33.633
in New York working in collaboration
with the Iranian government at the time.

00:19:34.800 --> 00:19:38.033
And in a house of the early 9th century,

00:19:38.700 --> 00:19:43.533
they found 12 ivory chess pieces.

00:19:44.200 --> 00:19:47.700
Now, the interesting thing about them
is that they are in a fully developed

00:19:47.700 --> 00:19:49.300
abstract form.

00:19:49.300 --> 00:19:51.866
There's no evidence of a transition.

00:19:51.900 --> 00:19:55.866
So, from this,
I would suggest that these types of pieces

00:19:55.866 --> 00:20:00.766
have been in use from some time
in the eighth century onwards.

00:20:01.433 --> 00:20:06.733
So, we're talking about roughly 100–120
years in between

00:20:06.733 --> 00:20:10.833
the two types that have been discovered
in an archeological context.

00:20:11.666 --> 00:20:14.000
And so this rather begs the question,

00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:17.600
Where do these abstract shapes come from?

00:20:17.633 --> 00:20:19.166
What is the inspiration?

00:20:20.233 --> 00:20:20.666
And I

00:20:20.666 --> 00:20:23.200
think we have to look at the figural form

00:20:23.766 --> 00:20:28.300
and work out how this came about,

00:20:28.800 --> 00:20:32.466
because the abstract form
continued to be used for a very, very long

00:20:32.466 --> 00:20:36.100
period of time - at least up
until the end of the 15th century,

00:20:36.333 --> 00:20:38.733
without really any significant changes.

00:20:40.066 --> 00:20:45.833
In my research, I started to think about
what these shapes really mean.

00:20:46.200 --> 00:20:48.333
And some of them are quite mysterious.

00:20:48.966 --> 00:20:52.533
The two pieces that we now regard
as the king and the queen,

00:20:52.533 --> 00:20:58.100
the shah and the firzan,
are the same, with the firzan figure

00:20:58.100 --> 00:21:02.133
being considerably smaller than the shah
to distinguish the two pieces.

00:21:02.700 --> 00:21:06.600
And they are almost
always represented as a dome

00:21:07.300 --> 00:21:09.766
with a smaller dome at the front.

00:21:09.766 --> 00:21:12.800
The piece is cut
out of one piece of material

00:21:12.966 --> 00:21:15.566
with a smaller dome cut away at the front.

00:21:16.300 --> 00:21:19.200
My contention
is that what we're seeing here

00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:23.833
is an abstraction of the elephant's head
and the back portion of the elephant

00:21:23.833 --> 00:21:27.633
where there would have been the howdaj
with the princely figure seated in it.

00:21:27.866 --> 00:21:32.966
Then looking at the pieces that one might
identify as the bishop or the elephant:

00:21:33.266 --> 00:21:38.800
these pieces in the abstract
set are invariably in the form of a dome

00:21:39.200 --> 00:21:45.066
with a pair of projecting either cones
or little bumps at the front of the piece.

00:21:45.066 --> 00:21:48.533
And it seems pretty clear
that this is an abstraction

00:21:48.533 --> 00:21:52.166
of the idea of an elephant,
with the tusks pointing upwards.

00:21:53.500 --> 00:21:55.566
The knight

00:21:55.566 --> 00:21:57.866
has gone through slightly
more of a transition.

00:21:57.900 --> 00:22:02.233
It's a sort of square-cut object
which retains the horse's

00:22:02.233 --> 00:22:05.633
head and a division marking the front
and the back of the animal.

00:22:05.666 --> 00:22:08.900
There's no sign of the knight
that would have sat upon it.

00:22:09.833 --> 00:22:12.033
As time went on, this piece morphed

00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:15.900
into a simple dome shape
with just a full projection -

00:22:15.900 --> 00:22:21.300
sometimes clearly an animal's head,
sometimes just a sort of triangular piece

00:22:21.633 --> 00:22:23.933
to indicate an animal's head.

00:22:25.466 --> 00:22:28.766
The rook is much more of an enigma,

00:22:29.100 --> 00:22:33.066
because I don't think it's entirely clear
what the origin was of that piece.

00:22:33.700 --> 00:22:37.133
But it's one of the easiest pieces
to distinguish: it's

00:22:37.133 --> 00:22:40.733
almost always a square section

00:22:40.733 --> 00:22:43.500
object with a deep V cut at the front.

00:22:43.800 --> 00:22:48.766
Sometimes the V’s cut flat at the top,
sometimes they're pointed.

00:22:48.966 --> 00:22:53.800
But this form of the rook
continued to be used right up

00:22:53.800 --> 00:22:56.366
until the end of the 15th century,
before there's a change.

00:22:57.066 --> 00:23:01.900
I've come to the conclusion
that it's an abstraction of the two horses

00:23:01.900 --> 00:23:07.733
that would have drawn the chariot or cart.

00:23:07.733 --> 00:23:10.600
The foot soldier has simply been turned

00:23:10.600 --> 00:23:15.300
into a small cone,
usually carved with facets.

00:23:15.300 --> 00:23:19.733
These shapes carried on being reproduced
for a long time.

00:23:20.166 --> 00:23:24.333
We're not sure why this change happened.

00:23:24.600 --> 00:23:26.666
A lot's been written about

00:23:28.233 --> 00:23:31.866
Islamic
art and abstraction and the fear of

00:23:32.933 --> 00:23:35.100
reproducing figurative forms.

00:23:35.733 --> 00:23:39.800
There
certainly probably was an element of that,

00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:44.533
but it seems to me more likely
that as the game of chess

00:23:44.533 --> 00:23:48.266
became more and more popular
in the eighth and ninth centuries,

00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:51.466
there was a need to reproduce

00:23:51.466 --> 00:23:53.733
chess sets more quickly.

00:23:54.100 --> 00:23:56.100
And obviously,

00:23:56.100 --> 00:24:00.300
you know, these simplified abstract forms
are much easier

00:24:00.300 --> 00:24:04.000
to reproduce than a complicated
little three dimensional sculpture,

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:08.100
which in any case
was not really a feature of Middle Eastern

00:24:08.100 --> 00:24:09.233
art at that time.

00:24:15.366 --> 00:24:17.633
With the Arab conquest in the mid-seventh

00:24:17.633 --> 00:24:21.166
century, chess rapidly
passed into the Islamic world.

00:24:21.800 --> 00:24:25.000
Now called shatranj, most of the pieces

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:28.333
also had Arabicized
versions of their Persian names.

00:24:28.966 --> 00:24:31.133
The shah remained the shah.

00:24:31.566 --> 00:24:34.200
The farzin became the firzan. .

00:24:34.866 --> 00:24:37.266
The pil became the fil.

00:24:37.933 --> 00:24:39.933
The rukh remained the rukh,

00:24:40.700 --> 00:24:43.266
and the piyahah morphed into the baidaq.

00:24:43.966 --> 00:24:46.200
While only the asp, our knight,

00:24:46.366 --> 00:24:49.833
became the faras,
the Arabic name for horse.

00:24:50.800 --> 00:24:52.433
The literature is filled with

00:24:52.433 --> 00:24:56.700
tales of early expert players,
several of whom played blindfolded.

00:24:57.200 --> 00:25:01.433
But it's in the 9th and 10th centuries
that the game really came into its own,

00:25:01.633 --> 00:25:06.433
with famous stories of legendary
chess masters such as al-Adlii,

00:25:07.033 --> 00:25:11.900
ar-Arazi and al-Suli,
all of whom wrote books on chess

00:25:11.900 --> 00:25:14.733
that were continuously copied
for centuries.

00:25:15.833 --> 00:25:18.600
From these manuscripts
we know both the movement

00:25:18.600 --> 00:25:21.100
of the pieces and the basic rules of play.

00:25:21.900 --> 00:25:24.333
The shah, faras

00:25:25.166 --> 00:25:30.900
and rukh moved exactly like our modern day
king, knight and rook -

00:25:30.900 --> 00:25:33.200
although there was no such thing
as castling.

00:25:33.933 --> 00:25:36.966
The baidaq moved just like a pawn, moving

00:25:36.966 --> 00:25:40.700
one square forward
vertically and capturing diagonally,

00:25:41.166 --> 00:25:44.300
but couldn't move two squares at a time
for its first move.

00:25:44.733 --> 00:25:48.933
And when promoted,
it could only change into a firzan.

00:25:50.700 --> 00:25:54.200
But on the whole, the shah, faras, rukh

00:25:54.333 --> 00:25:57.900
and baidaq are so close to our current
king.

00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:02.633
knight, rook and pawn
that in what follows, I'll simply use

00:26:02.633 --> 00:26:07.133
the familiar modern chess names
to refer to those shatranj pieces.

00:26:07.833 --> 00:26:11.300
The real difference between
the pieces of shatranj and those of modern

00:26:11.300 --> 00:26:16.166
chess lay in the fil - the elephant,
which later became our bishop -

00:26:16.533 --> 00:26:20.900
and even moreso, the firzan,
which eventually turned into our queen.

00:26:21.600 --> 00:26:25.333
The fil moves diagonally,
but only to the third available

00:26:25.333 --> 00:26:29.666
square in any direction,
jumping over another piece if necessary.

00:26:30.533 --> 00:26:34.333
The firzane,
meanwhile, could only move to the adjacent

00:26:34.333 --> 00:26:39.600
diagonal square in any direction, and
was thus not a very powerful piece at all.

00:26:39.866 --> 00:26:42.666
- a far cry from the modern queen.

00:26:48.033 --> 00:26:48.300
There

00:26:48.300 --> 00:26:50.933
were three basic ways to win at shatranj.

00:26:52.033 --> 00:26:54.400
First, through the usual checkmate:

00:26:54.766 --> 00:26:57.500
attacking the opponent's king
in such a way that he could

00:26:57.500 --> 00:27:01.200
neither stop the attacker
nor move to any safe square.

00:27:02.433 --> 00:27:05.100
But there were two other ways
of winning at shatranj

00:27:05.400 --> 00:27:08.233
for which there's no modern equivalent.

00:27:08.233 --> 00:27:11.333
First, by the so-called bare king rule,

00:27:11.700 --> 00:27:14.766
eliminating every other piece
of your opponent's army

00:27:14.766 --> 00:27:18.633
other than the king, while you have
at least one additional attacker

00:27:18.633 --> 00:27:22.233
that your opponent's king
can't capture on his very next move.

00:27:22.933 --> 00:27:27.500
And secondly, by putting your opponent
in a position where he has no legal move:

00:27:27.900 --> 00:27:32.400
where his king is not in check, but
anywhere he moves, it would be in check.

00:27:32.800 --> 00:27:36.433
In today's game,
that's a draw, called a stalemate,

00:27:36.733 --> 00:27:41.133
but in shatranj, the person with no legal
move available is the loser.

00:27:42.266 --> 00:27:43.400
But those early chess

00:27:43.400 --> 00:27:46.266
books did much more than just spell out
the rules of shatranj.

00:27:47.133 --> 00:27:51.466
They were filled with ingenious chess
problems, known as mansubat,

00:27:51.800 --> 00:27:54.900
to help the willing student master
the many tactical

00:27:54.900 --> 00:27:57.733
and strategic complexities of shatranj.

00:27:58.533 --> 00:28:01.866
Here's one that illustrates
how the bare king rule changes the way

00:28:01.866 --> 00:28:04.566
shatranj is played
compared to modern chess.

00:28:05.266 --> 00:28:08.100
It's taken directly from a game,
we're told,

00:28:08.566 --> 00:28:11.966
between Abu’n Naam and Rabrab, two

00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:14.633
chess masters from the time of the Abbasid
Caliph al-Ma’mun,

00:28:15.766 --> 00:28:18.100
who ruled in the early 9th century.

00:28:18.766 --> 00:28:23.233
Abu’n Naam was playing Black,
in case you're wondering.

00:28:23.233 --> 00:28:27.266
We begin with the following position,
where Black reasonably captures

00:28:27.266 --> 00:28:32.200
White's pawn to prevent it from
being promoted into a firzan, producing

00:28:32.200 --> 00:28:35.200
a situation
where one player has a rook and a knight,

00:28:35.566 --> 00:28:38.300
and the other just a rook.

00:28:38.300 --> 00:28:42.000
In modern chess,
such a position will always produce a draw

00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:46.833
with good defense, but shatranj’s bare
king rule changes things significantly.

00:28:47.700 --> 00:28:50.333
White begins here
by checking the black king

00:28:50.633 --> 00:28:53.933
and forcing him to either a7 or c7.

00:28:54.600 --> 00:28:57.233
If he moves to a7, he's suddenly

00:28:57.233 --> 00:29:01.200
in big trouble,
because now White can move his rook

00:29:01.266 --> 00:29:05.200
and simultaneously check the king
and threaten the black rook.

00:29:05.600 --> 00:29:09.166
Moving the king out of the way
loses the rook, and the game.

00:29:09.766 --> 00:29:15.033
But taking White's rook with his own leads
to white recapturing with his knight;

00:29:15.400 --> 00:29:19.800
and suddenly black
is out of pieces and loses by bare king.

00:29:20.933 --> 00:29:22.233
So the black king can't go

00:29:22.233 --> 00:29:26.466
to a7 after all, and must instead
go to c7.

00:29:26.933 --> 00:29:29.833
But this turns out to only postpone
the inevitable,

00:29:30.266 --> 00:29:35.100
because now White checks the king
with his knight,while protecting his rook,

00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:38.800
forcing the king
to move to his only available square.

00:29:39.433 --> 00:29:41.433
And now comes the key thrust:

00:29:41.833 --> 00:29:45.600
White moves his rook
directly in front of the black rook,

00:29:46.133 --> 00:29:50.433
and suddenly Black's got exactly
the same sort of problem once again.

00:29:50.733 --> 00:29:53.800
He can't move his king
or he loses his rook.

00:29:54.166 --> 00:29:56.033
So he has to move the rook.

00:29:56.033 --> 00:29:57.833
But he's got nowhere to put it.

00:29:57.833 --> 00:30:00.966
If he takes White's rook,
the knight will recapture

00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:03.900
and White will win by bare
king once again.

00:30:04.566 --> 00:30:07.333
Black has only three places
to move his rook,

00:30:07.333 --> 00:30:11.100
where it won't be immediately
captured by one of White's pieces.

00:30:11.100 --> 00:30:15.133
But whichever one he chooses,
White will then place his rook

00:30:15.233 --> 00:30:18.333
directly on the same rank
with Black's king and rook,

00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:21.233
and once again, black is in trouble.

00:30:21.633 --> 00:30:25.500
He can't move his king anywhere,
since White would then capture the rook.

00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:28.966
Moving his rook vertically is illegal:

00:30:29.233 --> 00:30:32.933
he rook is pinned, and moving at that way
would put himself in check.

00:30:33.566 --> 00:30:37.466
Moving the rook horizontally
would only result in it being captured.

00:30:38.066 --> 00:30:41.100
So he has no choice
but to capture White's rook.

00:30:41.800 --> 00:30:44.166
But now White has the killer move

00:30:44.166 --> 00:30:49.300
of checking the king and forking the rook
so that after Black moves his king

00:30:49.300 --> 00:30:52.200
out of check, White then captures the rook

00:30:52.500 --> 00:30:55.200
and once again wins by bare king.

00:30:55.900 --> 00:30:59.700
In modern chess, forcing a situation
where you have a knight

00:30:59.700 --> 00:31:03.366
and a king to your opponent's king doesn't
do any good,because

00:31:03.366 --> 00:31:06.166
it's impossible
to checkmate someone with just a knight.

00:31:06.566 --> 00:31:09.300
But thanks to the bare king
rule, White now

00:31:09.300 --> 00:31:13.133
has a way to engineer a certain victory
from our starting position,

00:31:13.300 --> 00:31:18.666
no matter what Black does, as Abu’n
Naam discovered, to his dismay.

00:31:19.633 --> 00:31:22.966
From this one
example, you get a glimpse of the depths

00:31:22.966 --> 00:31:26.400
of calculation that those early shatranj
players were using.

00:31:26.766 --> 00:31:29.833
And as it happens, this problem
turns out to be one of the more

00:31:29.833 --> 00:31:33.033
straightforward of the hundreds
spread throughout the literature.

00:31:33.800 --> 00:31:37.066
But while shatranj clearly has chess
like sophistication,

00:31:37.300 --> 00:31:40.900
since the fil and firzan cover
so much less ground

00:31:40.900 --> 00:31:45.466
than their modern counterparts of bishop
and queen, it's a very slow game.

00:31:45.900 --> 00:31:47.966
In order to play shatranj, then.

00:31:48.200 --> 00:31:51.300
you need to have a lot of time
on your hands;

00:31:51.700 --> 00:31:56.233
which naturally makes us wonder who,
exactly, was playing it?

00:31:57.533 --> 00:32:01.633
The question I asked myself is,

00:32:03.033 --> 00:32:05.100
“Is this game

00:32:05.100 --> 00:32:07.566
the preserve of the elite or is it a game

00:32:07.566 --> 00:32:10.600
that had trickled down to

00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:12.533
other members of society?”

00:32:12.533 --> 00:32:14.733
I think it's still very difficult
to answer that.

00:32:15.466 --> 00:32:16.800
The fact is that

00:32:18.033 --> 00:32:20.866
there
are not large numbers of chess pieces

00:32:20.866 --> 00:32:23.333
surviving from the Islamic period;

00:32:24.633 --> 00:32:27.366
and it is somewhat surprising

00:32:27.366 --> 00:32:31.166
,because
we have huge amounts of fine ceramics,

00:32:31.166 --> 00:32:33.400
fine glassware, metalwork,
and to a lesser degree, textiles.

00:32:36.500 --> 00:32:40.200
But we don't have a lot of evidence
of the games pieces.

00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:44.866
And the ones that have survived
are predominantly made of expensive

00:32:44.866 --> 00:32:47.666
materials, notably ivory,

00:32:48.033 --> 00:32:50.666
and also to a lesser degree, rock crystal.

00:32:51.533 --> 00:32:54.933
The material
I would expect to see is ceramic,

00:32:55.566 --> 00:33:00.366
because we have such an enormous amount
of ceramic vessels

00:33:00.666 --> 00:33:04.200
from all over the Islamic world,
from Syria to Iran to Egypt.

00:33:04.200 --> 00:33:08.200
This is a very common
material, was used for utilitarian

00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:11.400
wares as well as for very fine wares.

00:33:12.100 --> 00:33:15.200
But we have almost no chess pieces
made of this material either.

00:33:15.366 --> 00:33:16.600
And this is strange.

00:33:18.366 --> 00:33:19.766
So this led

00:33:19.766 --> 00:33:23.566
me to conclude that really,
for the longest time, chess

00:33:23.566 --> 00:33:27.900
probably remained the preserve of court

00:33:27.900 --> 00:33:31.466
circles rather than spreading
into the general population.

00:33:32.233 --> 00:33:35.633
And the fact that these ancient
chess pieces are made from such high-grade

00:33:35.633 --> 00:33:39.866
materials also gives us more clues
about the game's transmission,

00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:42.100
since people have a natural tendency

00:33:42.100 --> 00:33:45.033
to keep a careful record
of their expensive items.

00:33:45.733 --> 00:33:49.633
One of the reasons we know about the rock
crystal chess pieces is that

00:33:50.766 --> 00:33:54.900
many of them survived in European church
treasuries,

00:33:55.833 --> 00:33:58.500
where they've been for hundreds of years.

00:33:59.700 --> 00:34:02.300
The rock crystal chess pieces

00:34:02.600 --> 00:34:06.000
that are in the Al-Sabah
collection in Kuwait

00:34:06.533 --> 00:34:11.633
all came
originally from a princely collection

00:34:11.966 --> 00:34:15.900
in northern Spain,
in Catalonia, in a place called Àger.

00:34:16.200 --> 00:34:19.366
We have documentary
evidence of these pieces

00:34:20.100 --> 00:34:24.433
going back to the early 11th century,

00:34:24.433 --> 00:34:26.900
which is quite remarkable.

00:34:27.800 --> 00:34:32.000
And although we don't know
where they originated,

00:34:32.800 --> 00:34:37.933
it seems likely that they were taken
at some point

00:34:37.933 --> 00:34:41.466
as war booty
from the Caliphal Court at Cordoba.

00:34:47.200 --> 00:34:47.900
Attempts to

00:34:47.900 --> 00:34:51.200
explicitly trace the spread of chess
from the Islamic world

00:34:51.200 --> 00:34:54.533
into the medieval
Christian one are notoriously difficult.

00:34:55.300 --> 00:34:59.433
The game Zatrikion was known to be played
in the Byzantine Empire,

00:34:59.566 --> 00:35:02.900
and that seems like a straightforward
Greek transliteration of “shatranj”;

00:35:02.900 --> 00:35:06.033
and it was thought to be played
on a circular board.

00:35:06.466 --> 00:35:11.233
But the only explicit mention we have of
it comes from a few Arabic texts.

00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:15.300
There's a tale of the Byzantine
Emperor Nikephorus,

00:35:15.700 --> 00:35:19.166
who shortly after he came to power in 802,

00:35:19.366 --> 00:35:24.533
wrote an angry letter to the famed
Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid, explicitly

00:35:24.533 --> 00:35:28.666
using a chess metaphor to describe
how he would discontinue paying him

00:35:28.666 --> 00:35:32.400
the tribute that his predecessor,
the Emperor Irene, had done.

00:35:33.066 --> 00:35:38.033
“She,” disdainfully declares Nikephorus,
“inappropriately regarded herself

00:35:38.033 --> 00:35:43.100
like a pawn to Harun’s rook,” while
he regarded the situation differently.

00:35:43.733 --> 00:35:48.033
But it turns out that that story, too,
was written by Muslim historians

00:35:48.033 --> 00:35:51.900
roughly a century after the events
in question, and so hardly gives

00:35:51.900 --> 00:35:56.066
us reliable information
about to what extent the game Zatrikion

00:35:56.166 --> 00:35:58.966
had penetrated the Byzantine popular
consciousness.

00:35:59.900 --> 00:36:02.166
Turning westward, things become

00:36:02.166 --> 00:36:04.766
slightly clearer, but only slightly.

00:36:05.500 --> 00:36:10.433
We saw earlier how the rock crystal Àger
pieces had made their way into Spanish

00:36:10.433 --> 00:36:14.900
church treasuries by the 11th century;
and most believe the chess had begun

00:36:14.900 --> 00:36:18.800
to penetrate Christian Europe
at various points of direct intersection

00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:22.866
between the Islamic and Christian worlds,
primarily Italy and Spain,

00:36:23.100 --> 00:36:27.900
no later than the early 10th century,
and possibly considerably earlier still,

00:36:29.333 --> 00:36:31.333
whereupon it quickly spread far and wide.

00:36:31.933 --> 00:36:37.233
by the early 12th century, chess
was explicitly mentioned by Alfonso VI

00:36:37.233 --> 00:36:42.566
of Castillo's court physician, Petrus
Alfonsi, in his Disciplina Clericalis,

00:36:43.133 --> 00:36:45.600
as one of the seven
knightly accomplishments,

00:36:45.866 --> 00:36:49.900
along with riding,
swimming, archery, boxing,

00:36:50.200 --> 00:36:53.966
hawking and verse writing, -
which is strikingly similar

00:36:53.966 --> 00:36:57.900
to the sorts of stories
we saw earlier about how chess competency

00:36:57.900 --> 00:37:02.533
represented an important aspect
of princely life in the Sasanian Empire.

00:37:03.300 --> 00:37:06.433
Intriguingly,
unlike other previous transitions

00:37:06.600 --> 00:37:10.366
when the name for the game was passed
on from one culture to the next

00:37:10.366 --> 00:37:13.300
in the local language
form: from chaturanga

00:37:13.500 --> 00:37:18.933
to chatrang to shatranj,
only the Spanish and Portuguese

00:37:18.933 --> 00:37:22.600
did so with their names for chess, ajedrez

00:37:23.266 --> 00:37:28.833
and xadrez, a straightforward conversion
of the Arabic “shatranj”.

00:37:28.833 --> 00:37:32.533
Otherwise,
something odd happened linguistically,

00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:36.100
with the ancient Persian
name for king, shah,

00:37:36.633 --> 00:37:40.733
becoming “scac”
and coming to represent the entire game

00:37:40.733 --> 00:37:44.100
itself: ludus scachorum in Latin,

00:37:44.366 --> 00:37:49.100
scacchi
in Italian, échecs in French, schach

00:37:49.233 --> 00:37:52.933
in German, chess in English and so forth.

00:37:53.566 --> 00:37:56.533
And such variety was hardly
limited to the name.

00:37:57.133 --> 00:38:00.533
The first known European manuscript
that explicitly mentions

00:38:00.533 --> 00:38:04.733
chess is a Latin poem
from the Einseideln Abbey in Switzerland

00:38:04.833 --> 00:38:07.666
that's been data to shortly
before the year 1000.

00:38:08.333 --> 00:38:12.933
In it, we find that the fil or elephant
has become a count,

00:38:13.633 --> 00:38:16.666
The firzan has transformed into a queen,

00:38:17.100 --> 00:38:22.166
and the board is now checkered to more
easily follow the movement of the pieces.

00:38:23.700 --> 00:38:25.600
And as the game enters Europe,

00:38:25.600 --> 00:38:29.966
the form of the pieces
starts to change too: moving from abstract

00:38:30.266 --> 00:38:34.766
back to figural, with some exquisite
craftsmanship beginning to appear,

00:38:35.033 --> 00:38:39.066
most notably in ivory,
through innovatively combining the two.

00:38:39.600 --> 00:38:42.900
When the so-called Charlemagne
Chessmen were created in the latter

00:38:42.900 --> 00:38:46.700
part of the 11th century
in southern Italy, the figural forms

00:38:46.700 --> 00:38:50.666
are back with a vengeance, with the queen
now well-established,

00:38:50.933 --> 00:38:54.766
but the old fashioned chariot and elephant
still very much present.

00:38:55.233 --> 00:38:57.966
And as queens, kings and knights

00:38:58.200 --> 00:39:01.866
continue to be expressed in a figural way,
the elephant

00:39:01.966 --> 00:39:04.333
somehow became replaced with a bishop,

00:39:04.933 --> 00:39:07.433
while the rook seemed even more flexible.

00:39:07.900 --> 00:39:10.500
By the time the Lewis Chessmen
are produced in the latter

00:39:10.500 --> 00:39:13.533
part of the 12th century
- likely in Trondheim -

00:39:14.200 --> 00:39:16.933
rooks have
mysteriously turned into warders,

00:39:17.466 --> 00:39:22.400
some of whom have manifestly gone berserk
by biting into their shields

00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:25.566
in a palpable demonstration
of their military readiness.

00:39:26.400 --> 00:39:30.133
Meanwhile, the game itself
continued to gain in popularity,

00:39:30.333 --> 00:39:33.200
despite the fact that there was no one way
to play it.

00:39:33.900 --> 00:39:37.433
When Alphonso X’s, famous Book of Games
appears towards

00:39:37.433 --> 00:39:41.300
the end of the 13th century,
chess is specifically introduced

00:39:41.300 --> 00:39:45.600
as “a nobler and more honored
game than dice or backgammon,”

00:39:46.200 --> 00:39:50.400
with “chess,” in this case,
simply meaning shatranj.

00:39:50.766 --> 00:39:55.366
Indeed, Alfonso's book cites
many of the Arabic mansubat.

00:39:55.366 --> 00:39:59.033
But later on, the book also describes

00:39:59.266 --> 00:40:01.566
other types of chess currently in use:

00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:04.566
“great chess” that's played on a 12

00:40:04.566 --> 00:40:10.533
x 12 board with extra pieces of birds,
crocodiles, giraffes,

00:40:10.533 --> 00:40:12.766
rhinoceroses and lions,

00:40:13.566 --> 00:40:15.933
chess games for more than two players,

00:40:17.033 --> 00:40:17.300
and a

00:40:17.300 --> 00:40:22.200
variant of the usual chess called “forced
chess”, where an opponent is obliged

00:40:22.200 --> 00:40:25.766
to capture a piece if possible, rather
like the modern checkers.

00:40:27.533 --> 00:40:30.133
But even when people stuck to standard
chess,

00:40:30.533 --> 00:40:33.900
it would be played slightly differently
depending on where you were,

00:40:34.200 --> 00:40:39.000
with the rules for bare king, stalemate,
setting up the pieces

00:40:39.466 --> 00:40:42.933
or even aspects of their movement
- with kings, queens

00:40:42.933 --> 00:40:47.000
and pawns allowed to leap around
in different ways for their first move -

00:40:47.300 --> 00:40:50.933
varying considerably from region to region
throughout Europe.

00:40:51.900 --> 00:40:54.333
It's plain to see then, that chess was a

00:40:54.333 --> 00:40:57.100
highly popular pastime
in the medieval world.

00:40:57.700 --> 00:41:01.133
Well, that's interesting enough,
but in itself

00:41:01.666 --> 00:41:04.866
doesn't really distinguish
it from dice or backgammon

00:41:05.133 --> 00:41:08.933
or any of the other ways
that people amused themselves back then.

00:41:08.933 --> 00:41:12.633
But most significantly,
it turns out that chess was much,

00:41:12.633 --> 00:41:17.833
much more than a mere game, as
demonstrated by its extensive appearance

00:41:17.833 --> 00:41:21.666
throughout a remarkably wide
range of medieval literature.

00:41:29.300 --> 00:41:30.933
I went to my advisor and I said, “I

00:41:30.933 --> 00:41:33.900
really think I want to answer this
question: ‘Why chess?

00:41:34.266 --> 00:41:36.566
What is going on with chess
and the medieval world?’”

00:41:37.166 --> 00:41:40.766
And she said, because it's
not her area, “Well, I don't know.

00:41:41.166 --> 00:41:42.900
How much chess is there
on the medieval world?

00:41:42.900 --> 00:41:44.333
I don't know how much there is.

00:41:44.333 --> 00:41:46.500
Is there enough to write a dissertation?

00:41:46.500 --> 00:41:49.266
You're going to have to answer
that question first.”

00:41:49.266 --> 00:41:51.600
So I went off and I started looking

00:41:51.600 --> 00:41:56.466
at every chess thing
I could find, and made a list of 70 places

00:41:56.466 --> 00:42:00.133
where chess appeared
in stories and allegories.

00:42:00.133 --> 00:42:02.833
And I came back to my advisor
and she took one look and said, “Okay,

00:42:02.933 --> 00:42:07.100
there's your dissertation right there.”
And it really led me down an interesting

00:42:07.100 --> 00:42:10.900
road to so many, so many, chess

00:42:10.966 --> 00:42:13.833
stories: chess played with lovers,

00:42:14.366 --> 00:42:16.633
chess played that end in battle,

00:42:17.433 --> 00:42:20.766
chess played between two men
where one slugs together over the head

00:42:20.766 --> 00:42:23.733
with a chess set at the end -
I mean, there's just so many stories.

00:42:24.366 --> 00:42:27.466
Underlying all of it,
It started to dawn on me

00:42:27.466 --> 00:42:31.200
that a lot of it was connected
back to this idea of chess as a state.

00:42:31.533 --> 00:42:35.700
The moment chess came into Europe
was a moment of a kind of high allegory.

00:42:35.700 --> 00:42:40.800
People loved allegorical representations:
it was a way of seeing the world.

00:42:41.133 --> 00:42:45.600
And writing about relationships -
both internal relationships, where you get

00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:50.400
a lover and his internal emotions,
but also the external world too.

00:42:50.700 --> 00:42:54.966
At same moment, you're also getting
a total change in political systems.

00:42:54.966 --> 00:42:58.800
You're getting a much greater
diffusion of power politically,

00:42:58.933 --> 00:43:02.100
and that's coinciding with this allegory.

00:43:02.233 --> 00:43:05.600
So the two come together in chess,
where you get

00:43:05.966 --> 00:43:10.333
suddenly
a great shorthand for representing

00:43:11.533 --> 00:43:12.866
a power that's not

00:43:12.866 --> 00:43:16.633
as centrally organized; one
that still has the king

00:43:16.633 --> 00:43:19.300
as the kind of nominal center,
but is much more interested

00:43:19.300 --> 00:43:22.200
in the relationships
on the board of the other pieces.

00:43:22.966 --> 00:43:26.200
That's going to get right to Jacobus,
who wrote this political treatise

00:43:26.466 --> 00:43:31.200
that really doubled down
on that idea of diffuse power

00:43:31.733 --> 00:43:36.900
and made the most of these associational
relationships on the board.

00:43:37.266 --> 00:43:41.266
His book is divided into four parts;
and in the first part is the kind of

00:43:42.333 --> 00:43:43.066
setup.

00:43:43.066 --> 00:43:47.933
And in the setup, he has this king named
Evilmerodach, who comes to rule.

00:43:47.933 --> 00:43:53.000
And Evilmerodach’s advisor presents him
with this chess game to explain to him,

00:43:53.133 --> 00:43:57.533
“Here’s how you should rule.”
And the next part of the book

00:43:58.800 --> 00:44:02.033
describes the chess game,
and it goes through all the pieces.

00:44:02.433 --> 00:44:03.633
And in each section,

00:44:05.033 --> 00:44:07.100
Jacobus fills in stories

00:44:07.100 --> 00:44:10.233
that describe how each piece should act.

00:44:10.966 --> 00:44:13.666
And then he turns to all of the pawns

00:44:14.100 --> 00:44:17.800
and each pawn he individuates by trade.

00:44:18.733 --> 00:44:21.700
We don't tend to think of medieval pawns
as having trades,

00:44:21.733 --> 00:44:24.566
we think of them as just all

00:44:24.566 --> 00:44:26.033
kind of lower-class commoners.

00:44:26.033 --> 00:44:27.000
But not for Jacobus.

00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:30.133
He thought of each pawn as having
a different kind of professional role.

00:44:30.300 --> 00:44:33.266
So, the second part of Jacobus’ treatise

00:44:33.833 --> 00:44:38.900
is all about the pieces
and the way they need to live virtuously.

00:44:38.900 --> 00:44:41.666
And at the very end of his book,

00:44:42.600 --> 00:44:45.866
the king learns to play;
and in learning to play,

00:44:45.866 --> 00:44:51.700
he learns how the pieces move
and how they're all interconnected.

00:44:52.100 --> 00:44:56.266
And the whole point is that the king
sis upposed to learn

00:44:56.266 --> 00:44:59.700
that he is not the most powerful piece
and that these pieces

00:44:59.700 --> 00:45:04.033
all need to work together
in order to achieve anything on the board.

00:45:04.466 --> 00:45:07.500
So there is this idea of mutual dependency
across the board -

00:45:07.500 --> 00:45:11.666
and that was revolutionary to see chess
that way or to use chess that way,

00:45:11.666 --> 00:45:15.000
to think about the body politic
that way as

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:18.266
this kind of contractually bound thing.

00:45:18.766 --> 00:45:21.366
Up until chess came in

00:45:21.366 --> 00:45:24.533
and started
serving as this proxy for political order,

00:45:25.166 --> 00:45:28.100
the dominant metaphor for society

00:45:28.300 --> 00:45:31.400
was the king's body as an organic body.

00:45:31.866 --> 00:45:35.600
And in that metaphor,
you see the king as the head,

00:45:35.800 --> 00:45:39.666
you see the knights as the arms,
you see the farmers as the feet,

00:45:40.333 --> 00:45:42.466
you see the tax collectors as the stomach.

00:45:43.200 --> 00:45:46.033
But in that system,
everything's organically

00:45:46.033 --> 00:45:49.133
tied with very little room for movement.

00:45:50.233 --> 00:45:51.966
There's still interdependence.

00:45:51.966 --> 00:45:55.466
You get interdependent parts
in an organic body, but

00:45:56.300 --> 00:45:59.633
they're bound by nature, not by contract,

00:45:59.933 --> 00:46:02.466
and their mobility is limited.

00:46:02.966 --> 00:46:05.466
Chess is such a different way
of imagining things.

00:46:05.466 --> 00:46:05.900
I mean,

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:09.133
it doesn't feel like it when we were like,
“Oh, a body,” or “Oh, a chessboard.”

00:46:10.566 --> 00:46:13.500
But the contractually0bound nature
of that board

00:46:14.066 --> 00:46:16.633
and the way pieces work together on it

00:46:17.166 --> 00:46:20.466
and the kind of equalizing nature
of it...I mean, yes, the common

00:46:20.466 --> 00:46:24.400
the common pieces are smaller than
the noble pieces, but they're still there,

00:46:24.633 --> 00:46:26.566
as articulate and distinct forms.

00:46:26.566 --> 00:46:28.900
They aren't feet anymore.

00:46:28.900 --> 00:46:33.600
They're moving around and
and they're very powerful.

00:46:33.600 --> 00:46:33.966
And, in fact,

00:46:33.966 --> 00:46:38.300
when we get to the idea of pawn promotion,
they can become very powerful.

00:46:39.500 --> 00:46:42.900
After I started plowing ahead
with my chess research,

00:46:42.966 --> 00:46:46.833
I went to Les Échecs Amoureux, and
I went there because, like Jacobus, it was

00:46:48.500 --> 00:46:49.800
an extended allegory of

00:46:49.800 --> 00:46:53.066
chess; and I was curious.

00:46:53.633 --> 00:46:55.833
I had one extended allegory

00:46:56.200 --> 00:47:00.000
that looks explicitly at the board

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.700
as a metaphor for the political order:
individuating the pieces

00:47:04.700 --> 00:47:09.900
as knights, judges, notaries, merchants.

00:47:10.766 --> 00:47:13.800
And now I'm looking at this whole other
extended allegory

00:47:14.133 --> 00:47:17.300
where chess serves as pieces of love.

00:47:17.300 --> 00:47:19.766
You get shame, beauty...

00:47:19.766 --> 00:47:22.333
Two lovers play the game.

00:47:22.333 --> 00:47:27.000
The lover plays against a woman he's seen
in the garden, and they sit down to play

00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:32.700
and they each have pieces that correspond
to their emotions or their dispositions.

00:47:33.100 --> 00:47:34.466
So I was curious, you know.

00:47:34.466 --> 00:47:37.033
How could the chess have this whole one

00:47:38.266 --> 00:47:42.133
allegorical valence,
and then pivoting over have

00:47:42.133 --> 00:47:46.133
what seemed to be a completely different
register

00:47:46.533 --> 00:47:49.400
of symbolic value?

00:47:49.400 --> 00:47:52.400
So I read Les Échecs
- well, couldn't read the original poem

00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:57.033
because there's no copy of it -
but there's a commentary on it that exists

00:47:58.166 --> 00:48:00.000
by Évrard de Conty.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:05.633
And he unpacks all of the pieces
and unpacks the game.

00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:08.666
And when I read that

00:48:08.666 --> 00:48:12.700
the light bulb went off again,
because it was a political metaphor.

00:48:12.700 --> 00:48:16.266
Les Échecs Amoureux starts again
with a dreamer, a lover

00:48:16.500 --> 00:48:21.433
who wanders into a garden
and then he turns around and sees a woman.

00:48:21.633 --> 00:48:25.000
And she's beautiful
and he falls in love with her

00:48:25.566 --> 00:48:27.600
and he wants to play this
chess game with her.

00:48:27.600 --> 00:48:30.566
And she invites him to play
and he he loses.

00:48:30.933 --> 00:48:34.533
And in the commentary, Évrard
not only describes

00:48:34.533 --> 00:48:38.333
their pieces in terms
of how they correspond to love,

00:48:39.333 --> 00:48:41.700
he describes them
as political pieces, too.

00:48:42.133 --> 00:48:46.533
He slides easily from one register
to the next, so the well-ordered kingdom

00:48:47.133 --> 00:48:49.500
maps perfectly onto the well-ordered body;

00:48:50.133 --> 00:48:53.233
and you should act in love as you would

00:48:54.300 --> 00:48:55.600
as a citizen.

00:48:55.600 --> 00:49:00.633
So, the lover loses and he loses
because he gets distracted playing chess.

00:49:00.633 --> 00:49:04.600
He gets distracted by her beauty,
he gets overwhelmed by the game.

00:49:05.533 --> 00:49:08.566
And so after he loses, he wanders off

00:49:08.566 --> 00:49:12.600
and he gets a variety of figures
who come to comfort him.

00:49:12.600 --> 00:49:18.900
And eventually Pallas Athena comes along
and starts talking to him ,

00:49:18.900 --> 00:49:22.766
explaining to him not just about the game,

00:49:23.100 --> 00:49:28.666
but essentially giving him the same advice
that Jacobus spells out in his treatise:

00:49:29.100 --> 00:49:33.633
Here's how a well-ordered society
needs to work, and regulating

00:49:33.633 --> 00:49:34.533
your emotions

00:49:34.533 --> 00:49:37.333
will not just make you a better citizen,
it will make you a better lover

00:49:37.800 --> 00:49:41.133
and will make you play the game better.

00:49:41.966 --> 00:49:45.600
Chess shows up in Chaucer
-I wouldn't say all over Chaucer,

00:49:45.600 --> 00:49:49.700
but like many authors,
it surfaces in some of his works.

00:49:50.300 --> 00:49:53.266
Adjacent to the Chaucer
canon, though is the Tale of Beryn.

00:49:53.733 --> 00:49:56.000
For a long time
everybody thought this was Chaucer,

00:49:56.166 --> 00:49:58.700
because it's written in the form
of a Canterbury Tale.

00:49:58.733 --> 00:50:01.633
Like all good
authors, Chaucer inspires imitators.

00:50:02.033 --> 00:50:06.233
In the story, chess again
appears - in this case

00:50:06.233 --> 00:50:09.300
as a as a gambling game,
as a straight-up gambling game.

00:50:10.400 --> 00:50:11.300
Beryn, the

00:50:11.300 --> 00:50:14.700
main character, gambles away his fortune.

00:50:15.133 --> 00:50:18.933
His father pays him to go away, gives him
some ships filled with cargo.

00:50:19.300 --> 00:50:22.700
He ends up in a strange land,
and the first thing he does

00:50:22.700 --> 00:50:26.600
is play a game of chess
and start losing his fortune.

00:50:27.100 --> 00:50:29.866
The whole thing is set at a place
called The Checker of Hope,

00:50:30.433 --> 00:50:34.766
and I think that kind of drives home
how chess should be seen: the Exchequer,

00:50:34.766 --> 00:50:37.466
which is the court of account in England,

00:50:38.333 --> 00:50:41.233
is the Treasury where money is balanced.

00:50:42.100 --> 00:50:47.933
So, the idea of chess in The Tale of Beryn
is that when you gamble on chess,

00:50:48.233 --> 00:50:51.600
when you see chess
as a gambling game, as Beryn does,

00:50:51.600 --> 00:50:54.900
you're not using it the way
you're supposed to be using it: as this

00:50:54.933 --> 00:50:57.900
reminder of rational exchange,
as this reminder

00:50:58.166 --> 00:51:00.633
of reason and balance.

00:51:01.200 --> 00:51:05.966
In Clifford Geertz's anthropological piece
“Notes on theBalinese Cockfight”, he's

00:51:05.966 --> 00:51:10.766
really interested in how cockfighting
and gambling on cockfighting

00:51:10.900 --> 00:51:17.266
is both an isolated game - it's play,
an observable thing that happens

00:51:17.266 --> 00:51:20.766
that people engage in -
and yet at the same

00:51:20.766 --> 00:51:24.266
time around the game itself,

00:51:25.200 --> 00:51:26.633
social things are happening.

00:51:26.633 --> 00:51:29.166
So there's the space of play
and then there's the space

00:51:29.166 --> 00:51:30.533
around the space of play.

00:51:30.533 --> 00:51:33.433
And there's seepage between the two.

00:51:33.433 --> 00:51:35.933
There are all these terrific
little moments

00:51:36.300 --> 00:51:40.533
that are so clearly influenced
by not only Jacobus,

00:51:40.533 --> 00:51:43.666
but the kind of currency
that chess itself is

00:51:44.400 --> 00:51:48.566
assuming as it's getting played out
in all these romances: Chrétien de Troyes’

00:51:48.733 --> 00:51:52.066
Percival, the Dido Percival,
The Avowing of King Arthur,

00:51:52.066 --> 00:51:56.166
Walewein,
Fulke Fitzwarin, Huon de Bordeaux –

00:51:56.166 --> 00:52:00.866
there are so many medieval romances
that exist from the Middle Ages.

00:52:01.666 --> 00:52:06.100
And in so many of them
there's a chess scene.

00:52:06.733 --> 00:52:09.466
And it's just evidence

00:52:09.466 --> 00:52:13.433
of how much the medieval mind

00:52:13.433 --> 00:52:18.500
grabbed on to this allegory
and ran with it in

00:52:18.500 --> 00:52:20.800
so many different directions.