Article by Ernesto Negri*, published in Página 12

The Middle Ages are often considered, from a certain perspective, a dark period. However, this was not the case with chess. It was during this time that chess spread and acquired its modern form. Its transmission followed the path of trade and conquest. The Muslims (who had learned of it from the Persians, who had received it from India) brought it to Spain, where they established a caliphate in Córdoba, and later to Italy. It also entered through Byzantium and, following the course of the Volga River, through Russia and Scandinavia. From there, it spread throughout the continent. All of these events took place during this long period of human history.

During its evolution, it acquired its definitive name. The Spanish word derives from al-shatranj (chess), the term used by the invaders, which itself came from other phonetic variations (from chaturanga to chatrang). The abstract pieces (faceless, as forbidden by the Quran) gave way to statuettes with realistic figures. The monochrome checkered board became two-toned. The pieces were reconfigured: from the elephant to the bishop; from the chariot or ship to the rook; from the vizier to the queen. Black gradually replaced red, as it was considered more appropriate as an image of evil (darkness) in its agonistic struggle against white, which continued to represent good (light).

Given its prestige, it is considered a game fit for kings. The Persian king Khosrow I received it in Baghdad. Several caliphs, despite religious reservations, cultivated it (among them the powerful Harun al-Rashid), employing the most skilled player of each generation (the most notable being al-Adli and al-Suli). In the courts of Europe, kings and nobles made it their principal pastime.

The first popular works on chess, the classification of players by category, and the impressive simultaneous and blindfold chess formats are attributed to Muslims. It would later be included in influential, nonspecific narratives, such as Ferdowsi's Book of Kings, Al-Mas'udi's Book of the Golden Meadows, Khayyam's Rubaiyat, and One Thousand and One Nights. From this tradition comes the story of Dilaram, a sultan's favorite, who, when placed on a wager, manages to avert her fate by showing her lord how to win the contest.

Hypothetically, it is imagined that Empress Irene of Byzantium sent a chess set incorporating the queen to Charlemagne, whom she wished to marry in order to unite the Western and Eastern Roman Empires; but the Gaul, frightened by the powers attributed to the new piece, rejected the offer. More tangibly, the piece (and the game as a whole) is first mentioned in Europe in the Versus de scachis manuscripts, which date from 997.

There will be allusions in influential epic poems and songs: The Song of Ruodlieb; Parzival; Tristan; The Song of Roland; Carmina Burana. Pedro Alfonso lists the seven virtues of the knight, among which he includes chess (in addition to, for example, archery, hunting, and writing verse). Didactic works by Boncompagno of Siena, Damiano, Vicent, and Lucena are produced.

Much of what we know about the game is due to the wealth of literature from that era. With the powerful impact of the printing press, years later we could discover emblematic texts from the 13th century (along with several translations): those of the Dominican friar Cessolis and King Alfonso X of Castile. In the former, the first book published in England (before the Bible), his sermons are compiled, in which chess emerges as a parable of society: the regulated game perfectly represents feudalism. "The Wise One," for his part, in his precious Book of Chess, Dice, and Tables, gives it preferential treatment: he considers it "noble and serene" and a matter of "mind" (or "thought"). These works solidified its metaphorical use and intellectual reputation.

It is also a facilitator of love, since encounters between people of different sexes can take place around a chessboard; this is recorded by poets and minstrels. Its literary use explores other themes, including the eternal struggle between good and evil (God versus the devil). Nevertheless, its historical association as a warlike image persists, so that when the French King Louis VI lost a battle, he rebuked an enemy, saying: “Ignorant and insolent knight. Not even in chess can a king be trapped”; or it is speculated that the siege of Antioch was decided when the Turkish leader became distracted during a game. The real and the playful merge and become indistinguishable. Croatia incorporated the chessboard into its own coat of arms (and later into its flag) in recognition of a king who achieved his people's freedom by defeating his Venetian counterpart at chess.

The female chess piece burst onto the scene with powerful queens, due to the greater social recognition of women and the rise of Marian devotion (De Coincy associates the Virgin with the respective piece). She initially moves timidly on the board (just as the exotic vizier she replaced did), before acquiring a more expansive range of movement. This revolutionized the game, making it more dynamic and aggressive; it became known as "alla rabbiosa" chess. Women were slow to enter the game, but when they did, they certainly made their presence felt.

The bishop also expands its range of action; castling emerges; en passant capture is permitted, and the pawn can now be promoted to a queen (generating two ethical dilemmas: bigamy and transsexualism). The rules are standardized towards the end of the period with the decisive contribution of Valencian chess (reflected in the poem Scachs d'amor, which recounts a match, the first known under the renewed format), so that it will now be possible to play without interpretive problems, thus favoring future international competition.

As proof of its importance, great writers have taken note of it. Dante Alighieri, in The Divine Comedy, observing the many sparks in a fire, states: “…their number was a thousand times greater than that produced by multiplying the squares on a chessboard.” Boccaccio, in the Decameron, depicts young men playing it, and in Filocolo, he recounts the story of the hero who rescues his beloved captive from a castle he gains access to by winning the trust of a watchman with whom he plays a few games. A third Italian, Petrarch, does not hold it in high regard: the least he says about chess is that it is pointless. The Englishman Chaucer, besides including it in his Canterbury Tales, places it at the center of the plot in The Duchess's Book, where his protagonist laments having lost his wife (his “queen”) in an unequal game against Fortune.

It is a source of inspiration for numerous painters and portrait artists. Some images can be seen in the Palatine Chapel in Palermo. But the finest illustrations appear in books (including some attributed to the genius of Leonardo, which will emerge at the beginning of the next era). Goldsmiths create beautiful pieces and panels of high aesthetic and material value, which become part of dowries and are given as gifts and heirlooms.

A certain obscurantism, so idiosyncratic to the period, inevitably affected it. From extreme positions, it was argued that it had something diabolical about it (being so distracting) and because it became associated with gambling (and unholy money). Pope Alexander II was asked to prohibit it. But nothing could prevail against a game that became the main pastime, an inseparable part of the culture. So important was it that it can even be argued that while Ferdinand of Aragon was playing it, he was saved from defeat by Isabella the Catholic and that, in gratitude, he accepted the plan she advocated, which had been presented to him by a navigator who believed he could reach the Indies by sailing west. Thus, Columbus was able to 'discover' America, bringing an end to one era and the beginning of another.

The ships' cargo included pieces and boards that would thus arrive in America for the first time, returning, in their new design, to the East where they had been conceived. The Middle Ages, in which the game was modernized and spread, laying the foundations for its universalization and flourishing as part of the culture. The Middle Ages, in which, at least for chess, light had prevailed over darkness.

* FIDE Master and chess researcher. Co-author of the collection History of Argentine Olympic Chess.