Board Game Studies Journal

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Editorial Board

Jorge Nuno Silva Alex de Voogt Carlos P. Santos

(managing editor) Museum of Natural History CELC
University of Lisbon NY, USA [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected]

Fernanda Frazão Irving Finkel João Pedro Neto

Apenas Livros British Museum University of Lisbon
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Lídia Fernandes Thierry Depaulis Ulrich Schädler

Museu Romano Le Vieux Papier Musé Suisse du Jeu
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Supporting Institutions

Associação Ludus Centro Inter-Universitário de

[email protected] História da Ciência e da Tecnologia
(CIUHCT)

Published by
Associação Ludus
R. da Escola Politécnica, 56
1250-102 Lisboa
PORTUGAL
Typeset in LATEX
 REVIEWS

Birth of the Chess Queen

Arie van der Stoep
Independent board game researcher

Marilyn Yalom, Birth of the chess queen. Harper-

Collins, New York, hardcover ed. 2004, paperback
2005.
Chess, born in the East, is a war game. This can be demonstrated by the
pieces. The piece alongside the king for example was a vizier, a counsellor:
a vizier gave the king advice in important matters as the strategy on the
battlefield. After chess was carried to Europe (10th c.) the counsellor was
replaced by a queen.
A possible relation between living queen and chess queen, this is Yalom’s
subject. Since many Western female sovereigns willingly left combat and war
to their husbands, the presence of a queen in Western chess is a proof that
chess took on a social dimension [2005:XIX]. The author did not confine
herself to this observation, but asked the intriguing question if there were
living models, so female sovereigns, for the chess queen.
The method Yalom chose to find an answer guarantees the reader some
fascinating hours. She describes a work on chess from a certain period
and thereupon the life of the female sovereign of the territory in the time
the chess manuscript was written. Then she checks whether this sovereign
could have served as a model for the chess queen. I give an example that is
illustrative for her method of reasoning.
On p. 15-18 Yalom describes the Einsiedeln poem from the late 990s, a
Latin poem written by a German speaking monk. On p. 19-24 she describes
the lives of Adelaide of Burgundy and her daughter-in-law Theophano, a
Byzantine princess. “Which queen served as a model?”, she asks on p.
19. She cannot make a choice, for “both Theophano and Adelaide provide
plausible sources for the birth of the chess queen. Both were famous during
their lifetime as consorts sharing power with their husbands and as queens
regent successfully protecting their dynasty. Both were highly cultivated

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154 Birth of the Chess Queen

in the realm of art and literature, and had a working knowledge of Latin.
Both have been credited with inspiring the Ottonian Renaissance at the
imperial court. Both died in the 990s (Theophano in 991, Adelaide in 999),
the decade during which the Einsiedeln Poem was composed. What more
fitting tribute to a recently deceased empress, or one about to die, than
a poem attesting to the existence of the chess queen?” [2005:25]. There
could be something wrong with my sense of logic, but I am not able to
understand why there should be a connection between a chess queen and a
female sovereign because the latter has a working knowledge of Latin.

Identification
A second objection concerns Yalom’s identification of chess as a board game
and the position of the game in literature and the plastic arts. A striking
example is to be found on p. 147: “By the late fifteenth century, when the
chess queen’s supreme powers were officially codified, the game itself was at
the height of its popularity, with a special meaning for couples. They could
look to chess as a privileged space for the interchange of intellect, feelings,
and sexual desire.” Yalom’s observations do not relate to chess itself but to
the literature, of course. Chess is not more than a pastime: to kill the time
two persons in turn move a little wooden figure on a rectangular surface.
I just wrote “Yalom’s identification”. This is an undeserved reproach,
however, for the American only reproduces an argument used by chess his-
torians to prove the popularity of chess as a game. The German Joachim
Petzold, for example, argued that chess responded as a seismograph to social
changes [4, p. 151]. Not chess responded to social changes: an artist applied
chess as a motif, and the way he developed the theme is subject to the place
and the time where and when he lived. See the great differences between
poems on chess and manuscripts on the game written by chess players, a
difference which even becomes visible in the vocabulary: literary men men-
tioned the chess queen regina or invented another female name, chess players
(almost) always preferred the Muslim name fierge/fers [Murray 1913 quoted
many works].
On the background a question asks our attention that Petzold did not
touch. This one. Different from our time, a medieval writer did not strive af-
ter originality. On the contrary, he eagerly borrowed metaphors and themes
from earlier generations. In the French romances of chivalry knights invari-
ably enjoyed playing chess and tables. But was this reality, would it not be
better to suppose we have to do with a stereotype? A much read genre in

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 Arie van der Stoep 155

the trivial literature of the West is the doctor novel, where at the last page
a male physician and a female nurse press each other in their arms after
a lot of setback. In the 15th c. a loving couple had a date with the chess
board as an excuse, in the 21st c. lovers meet with an operating table in
between. The doctor always is sporty, slim, tanned, charming and attrac-
tive, his female patients yearn for his coming, but the real hospital gives
me quite another impression. The real world in medieval France, reflected
in the French vocabulary, tells us that the most popular board games was
draughts [7, pp. 149-154].

Spanish queen and chess history

Yalom’s quest starts about 1000. After a number of gripping descriptions
of chess manuscripts and absorbing depictions of strong female queens and
empresses, Yalom arrives at 15th Spain, a place and time where and when
chess players broke the old Muslim game. The Einsiedeln poem was de-
voted to a game with a chess queen which could move only to a diagonal
adjacent square; in the late 15th c. the piece was allowed to advance di-
agonal and straight lines as far as it liked. Yalom pays attention to the
poem “Scachs d’amor” (Love chess) from the 1470’s, the first manuscript
referring to the new chess queen [2005:193-194]. The governing queen was
Isabella of Castile; we make acquaintance with her on p. 199-211. “Can we
establish a connection between the new mighty chess queen and Isabella?”,
asks Yalom [2005:191]. Her answer is affirmative, based on the argument
that Isabella was a militant queen, and that the new chess queen with her
unlimited power is militant too [2005:211].
This argument is not new, Yalom borrowed it from Spanish chess histo-
rians. She adopts it to sustain her claim, but is it valid? I am afraid not;
for the second time I lodge an objection against the method used by chess
historians. Clarification.
A “female” word for the Muslim fierge/fers like regina was not invented
by a chess player but by a literary man, who did not see chess as a board
game but as a representation of (some part of) the society. In this case a
sociological explanation for the birth of regina is demanded.
The Spanish name dama = ’chess queen’, however, rose in the vocabulary
of chess players, was coined by people who experimented with the rules of
their game, the kind which looses himself so deeply that he forgets the world
around him. This escape out of reality is an essential characteristic of play
[Huizinga 1950 5:41]. For this reason a social explanation is methodologically

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156 Birth of the Chess Queen

wrong, an etymological investigation is requisite. This investigation was

carried out. The Spanish word dama = ’chess queen’ is a new sense of an
existing word ’dama’. This older word dama means ’row where the chess
pawn is promoted’. Chess players borrowed it from draughts players [7,
pp. 38-43].
On p. 194 Yalom refers to Westerveld 1997, who claimed that the Span-
ish name for draughts, juego de damas, originally meant ’game with chess
queens’ and was linked to the prestige of the Spanish queen Isabella. This
is an easy assumption, not based on investigation. A linguistic approach
revealed that the game name juego de damas was borrowed from French
and dates back to the 14th c. [5, 6] [7, pp. 25-37].

The mythologisation of chess

Petzold’s “Kulturgeschichte” is a serious historical study on chess, and West-
erveld and other Spanish investigators do serious research too. They cause
me a problem, however. In my latest book (2007) I tried to compare the po-
sition of chess with the position of draughts and other board games. Leaving
literature and plastic arts aside as in principle unreliable, I found a game
which has not been very popular for many ages. Only in the 19th c. chess
began to outstrip its sister game draughts, for instance; in the 15th and
again in the 18th c. chess was drastically influenced by draughts [7, pp. 38-
48, 98-101].
Following the description of the position of chess by chess historians,
I see –again– a methodological inadequacy. Chess is a trifling pastime,
like tables, draughts, goose or halma. In the chess literature the game is
proclaimed, but without any comparatative investigation, as an exceptional
board game, a game of mythical proportions. By linking chess to historical
female sovereigns, Yalom contributes her mite to the mythologisation.
In this context I cast a doubt on Yalom’s story [2005:103] about king
Louis IX of France. One day Louis saw his brother playing chess while at
sea during the Crusade, and he dumped the board and all its pieces into
the Mediterranean. Yalom’s source is an edition of Jean de Joinville, Vie de
Saint Louis published in 1995. But in the edition of this work by Natalis
de Wailly, Paris 1888:22 it is said that Louis’ brother jouoit aus tables a
monsignour Gautier d’Anemous. Louis was ill, but left his bed, went to the
players et prist les dez et les tables et les geta en la mer, and scolded his
brother because the latter played for money. The game in question is tables,
and Louis threw the dice and the table pieces into the water.

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 Arie van der Stoep 157

Draughts-chess

A last matter. On p. 179, Yalom without comment takes a remarkable

line from Linder’s book on chess in Russia: “And we played draughts-chess
together”. Draughts-chess is the literal translation of the Russian combina-
tion shashski-shakhmaty, a riddle that Linder cannot settle, no more than
the conjunction peshi-shakhmaty [2, p. 118]. Can we solve the puzzle look-
ing to the pieces Russian draughts players used? The Ancients played their
board games with flat circular pieces. Gaming pieces which have been pre-
served from old times and which are not flat, all originate from Egypt and
the Near East, see for this [7, pp. 169-172]. In former days, the Russians
probably played draughts with pawn shaped figures, with “chess pawns”.
This could explain the Russian game name shashki, the plural of the word
shashka, literally “small chess piece”, so a pawn [5, p. 216]. Reading both
shashski and peshi as ’pawn’, we interpret the conjunctions as “game with
pawn shaped figures in which checkmate plays a part”. Chess.

Conclusion

To the reader who is interested in the past, particularly in the contribution

of female sovereigns in the European history, or who wants to read palatable
stories about chess in literature and arts, I can warmly recommend Yalom’s
book. It does not contribute to our knowledge of chess; on the contrary: it
increases the ingrained prejudices about the position of chess among other
board games. But it would be unjust to lay this at Yalom’s door, she might
trust on the literature. The chess history, however, contains some major
methodological flaws, which clearly surface in Yalom’s book. Hence my
conclusion: the book may be fascinating and captivating, it is far from a
contribution to our knowledge of board games.

Burgemeester
Vlaklaan 30
4927 AB Hooge Zwaluwe
Holland

[email protected]

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158 Birth of the Chess Queen

References
[1] Huizinga, Johan, Homo ludens (1938). I refer to the Dutch version in
Huizinga’s Collected Works, Haarlem 1950. The English translation (by
R.F.C. Hull) was published in 1949 [London].

[2] Linder, I.M., Chess in Old Russia, 1979. Zrich.

[3] Murray, H.J.R., A history of chess, ed. 1962. Oxford.

[4] Petzold, Joachim, Schach. Eine Kulturgeschichte, 1986. Leipzig.

[5] Stoep, Arie van der, Over de herkomst van het woord damspel (diss.
1997). Rockanje.

[6] Stoep, Arie van der, review in Board Game Studies 2000:132-4.

[7] Stoep, Arie van der, Draughts in relation to chess and alquerque, 2005,
2007. Hooge Zwaluwe.

[8] Westerveld, Govert, De invloed van de Spaanse koningin Isabel La

Catolica op de nieuwe sterke dame in de oorsprong van het dam- en
het moderne schaakspel, 1997. Beniel.

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 Board Games Studies was first published in 1998, an initiative inspired
by the colloquia on board games held at Leiden University, the Netherlands,
in 1995 and 1997. Five institutions affiliated themselves with the journal:
the Institut für Spielforschung und Spielpädagogik in Salzburg, the Interna-
tional Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden, the Russian Chess Museum in
Moscow, the British Museum in London, and the Department of Computer
Science at the University of Maastricht. The journal, which was published
by CNWS Publications in Leiden on a yearly basis, was partially funded
through the assistance of patrons and boasted a modern layout, trilingual
summaries and color plates. The broad ambition of this journal required
a continuous commitment from the editors, who reviewed contributions in
German, French and English, provided translations of summaries for each
article and, in several cases, collaborated extensively with authors to develop
manuscripts that were to the academic standards of the publication. The
journal had a trial run of three years, after which the format, content and
review process was evaluated. The authors of the articles integrated wide-
ranging literature necessary for a comprehensive understanding of particu-
lar games. Contributions from different disciplines — including psychology,
computer science, philology, classical archaeology and history — allowed for
a better historical and systematic understanding of board games to emerge.
Starting in 2000, a section with a translation of primary sources was added.
Book reviews and research notes further complemented the multi-facetted
contents. Its first ambition, to serve as a platform for the publication of
board games research, was met quickly, while gradually the journal gained
prominence among researchers by publishing seminal historical overviews.
The colloquia continued from 1995 onwards, moving from a biennial to a
yearly schedule. The host institution was expanded beyond Leiden to uni-
versities and museums throughout Europe as well as Jerusalem, Philadelphia
and, in 2013, the Azores. The colloquia continue to gather an enthusiastic
group of scholars, players and collectors. Despite the institutional affiliations
and a group of patrons, the production of the journal became financially and
logistically problematic with CNWS no longer able to serve as a publisher.
Reluctantly, the paper version of the journal was discontinued after volume
7 was published in 2004. The possibility of an online version of the journal
had been explored with the online publication of the first issues, a decision
that greatly assisted the dissemination of knowledge accumulated in those
early volumes. The next step, an online journal that operates again as a
platform for recent board games research, was not far away but required the
skills and enthusiasm of previous and new editors to materialize. In these
last fifteen years, the study of board games has gained momentum and this
journal will not only showcase new results but, most of all, will encourage
and publicize the work of the dedicated researchers in this field.
Alex de Voogt
 To the authors
Board Game Studies is an academic journal for historical and systematic
research on board games. Its object is to provide a forum for board games
research from all academic disciplines in order to further our understanding of
the development and distribution of board games within an interdisciplinary
academic context. Articles are accepted in English, French, and German
and will be refereed by at least two editors under the final responsibility of
the Editorial Board. Please send your contributions in any editable format
(Word, LATEX, rtf, . . . ) with a matching PDF file. Please send all the
illustrations in separate files.
Send all mail to the managing editor:
Jorge Nuno Silva
História e Filosofia da Ciência
Faculdade de Ciências
Campo Grande, C4
1749-016 Lisboa
PORTUGAL

Contacts
Associação Ludus
Board Game Studies Journal
R. da Escola Politécnica, 56
1250-102 Lisboa
PORTUGAL

email: [email protected]
URL: bgsj.ludus-opuscula.org
 TABLE OF C ONTENTS

Evolution for games 1

Cosimo Cardellicchio

On game psychology... 13
Emanuel Gluskin

Présentation d’informations... 35
Stéphane Goria

The loop within circular three mens morris 51

Florian Ulrich Maximilian Heimann

A pictish origin for HnefatafL? 63

David Lawrence

The Development and Regional Variations of Liubo 81

Yasuji Shimizu

A Chess Legend 107

Arie van der Stoep

New problems on old solitaire boards 123

George I. Bell and John D. Beasley

Der Kreislauf der Rundmühle 147

Florian Heimann

Makonn and the Indian Ocean... 159

Alex de Voogt

Birth of the Chess Queen 165

Arie van der Stoep