Italian mainland near Naples and Rome. Not long after this, the poet and expert chess player Muhammad ibn Ammar was said to have saved the Islamic Kingdom of Seville from attack by winning a game of chess against the Christian King Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile. They played a chess game, that is, in lieu of clashing in a real war. *5 Whether this was fact or legend, the mere suggestion of replacing bloody conflict with a board game contest foreshadowed a crucial advance in civilization: the replacement of violent struggle for resources with nonviolent competition.
In between the long, brutal Muslim-Christian battles, scholars, spiritual figures, and even sovereigns exchanged a voluminous quantity of customs and knowledge. “It is a paradoxical but well-established fact,” reports historian Richard Eales, “that even in the period of the Crusades more new learning came to the West from the Muslim ‘enemy’ than through eastern Christian civilization. This was true not only of science and mathematics, some of which, like chess, originated in India, but also of classical literature. The Aristotelian texts which were to revolutionize European philosophy were first translated into Latin in the twelfth century from Arabic, and the main translating centers were in areas of cultural coexistence: Spain and Sicily, and to a lesser extent the Latin states founded in Palestine by the Crusaders. *6
The importance of this massive transfer of knowledge cannot be overstated. Through much of the twentieth century, historians taught that Western civilization passed directly from Greece and Rome to Europe. But in fact the Islamic Renaissance was a critical middle ground for much of the knowledge that would make the European Renaissance possible.
Tracking chess’s migration is also a way of tracking the larger transmission of knowledge. Records show chess spreading to a Swiss monastery by 997; to northern, Christian-controlled Spain by 1008; to southern Germany by 1050; and to central Italy by 1061. Everywhere the game appeared in Europe, it seemed to take root quickly. By the early twelfth century it was ubiquitous, so ensconced in the culture of medieval chivalry that it was listed as one of seven essential skills for every knight (along with riding, swimming, archery, boxing, hawking, and verse writing).
Not surprisingly, the game had a few distinctive European modifications by then. The Elephant, an animal largely foreign to Europe, was replaced by the Bishop—except in France, where that piece became
le fou
(the jester or fool)—and the King’s Minister was replaced by the Queen. †1 The board, which had been divided into sixty-four monochrome squares (as shown in the tenth-century illustration on Chapter 2), now saw the introduction of dark and light checkered squares—not out of any vital necessity, but simply to make movements easier for the eye to track. Since Christianity has no prohibition against representational images, the design of chessmen also slowly moved back toward more literal imagery. Finally, the game’s name shifted from the Arabic
shatranj
to the Latin
ludus scacorum
(“the game of the chessmen”), and from there to the Italian
scacchi
, the French
eschecs
, the German
schachspiel
, the Dutch
schaakspel
, the Icelandic
ska’ktafle
, the Polish
szachy
, and the English
chess
.
Europe’s kings personally embraced the game as sultans, caliphs, and emirs had before them. The medieval historian Alexander Neckam reported on a battle, in 1110, for control over Gisors, in Normandy, where the French King Louis VI suddenly found himself seized by an enemy knight.
“The king is taken,” shouted the knight.
“Ignorant and insolent knight,” replied the king. “Not even in chess can a King be taken.”
The spread continued. By 1200 or so, the game was established in Britain and Scandinavia. The Lewis Chessmen had been carved in Norway, and the game was utterly adored in Iceland. It was an unstoppable
In between the long, brutal Muslim-Christian battles, scholars, spiritual figures, and even sovereigns exchanged a voluminous quantity of customs and knowledge. “It is a paradoxical but well-established fact,” reports historian Richard Eales, “that even in the period of the Crusades more new learning came to the West from the Muslim ‘enemy’ than through eastern Christian civilization. This was true not only of science and mathematics, some of which, like chess, originated in India, but also of classical literature. The Aristotelian texts which were to revolutionize European philosophy were first translated into Latin in the twelfth century from Arabic, and the main translating centers were in areas of cultural coexistence: Spain and Sicily, and to a lesser extent the Latin states founded in Palestine by the Crusaders. *6
The importance of this massive transfer of knowledge cannot be overstated. Through much of the twentieth century, historians taught that Western civilization passed directly from Greece and Rome to Europe. But in fact the Islamic Renaissance was a critical middle ground for much of the knowledge that would make the European Renaissance possible.
Tracking chess’s migration is also a way of tracking the larger transmission of knowledge. Records show chess spreading to a Swiss monastery by 997; to northern, Christian-controlled Spain by 1008; to southern Germany by 1050; and to central Italy by 1061. Everywhere the game appeared in Europe, it seemed to take root quickly. By the early twelfth century it was ubiquitous, so ensconced in the culture of medieval chivalry that it was listed as one of seven essential skills for every knight (along with riding, swimming, archery, boxing, hawking, and verse writing).
Not surprisingly, the game had a few distinctive European modifications by then. The Elephant, an animal largely foreign to Europe, was replaced by the Bishop—except in France, where that piece became
le fou
(the jester or fool)—and the King’s Minister was replaced by the Queen. †1 The board, which had been divided into sixty-four monochrome squares (as shown in the tenth-century illustration on Chapter 2), now saw the introduction of dark and light checkered squares—not out of any vital necessity, but simply to make movements easier for the eye to track. Since Christianity has no prohibition against representational images, the design of chessmen also slowly moved back toward more literal imagery. Finally, the game’s name shifted from the Arabic
shatranj
to the Latin
ludus scacorum
(“the game of the chessmen”), and from there to the Italian
scacchi
, the French
eschecs
, the German
schachspiel
, the Dutch
schaakspel
, the Icelandic
ska’ktafle
, the Polish
szachy
, and the English
chess
.
Europe’s kings personally embraced the game as sultans, caliphs, and emirs had before them. The medieval historian Alexander Neckam reported on a battle, in 1110, for control over Gisors, in Normandy, where the French King Louis VI suddenly found himself seized by an enemy knight.
“The king is taken,” shouted the knight.
“Ignorant and insolent knight,” replied the king. “Not even in chess can a King be taken.”
The spread continued. By 1200 or so, the game was established in Britain and Scandinavia. The Lewis Chessmen had been carved in Norway, and the game was utterly adored in Iceland. It was an unstoppable
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