Chess Scotland Noticeboard

A Muir · King Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 163 Location: Dumbarton

Back on the history front, who was the first known Scottish person to play chess ?
What were the rules in those days ? Were castling and en passant allowed ?

Doctor Bob · Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:30 am Post subject:

The 10th Century French monk, Geoffrey de Chandelois claims to have brought chess to the court of Constantine II of Alba. In his writings, he is dismissive of inferior chess-like games played by the Vikings.
The game became very popular at court, although it is not known whether Constantine himself played. By the time of his successor, Malcolm I, the game was so popular that there were two 'chess skules' vying for the right to teach children the game.

In this early period, the queen's powers were much reduced compared to today and the rook was the most powerful piece. Castling is first mentioned in an early chess manuscript as 'Cornering y Kyng'. It is not known whether Chandelois was responsible for the 'Cornering' manuscript.
_________________
Doc B is actually Robert Lothian

A Muir · King Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 163 Location: Dumbarton

I am reading a book on Mary, Queen of Scots who seems to be the first documented Scottish lady player.
In her library was the book "The Rules of Chesse" translated by William Caxton in 1474.
If anyone has a copy of this book then this will give us the rules of the game at that time.

Mike Chisholm · Chairman Chisholm Joined: 24 Jul 2007 Posts: 169

You may want to try the Gutennburg project's website. It's a useful site for all manner of subjects that collects and publishes books and other transcripts where the copyright has expired and/or none held. (So perfectly legal admin.)

I've had a look and they have that transcript "Game and Playe of the Chesse" by claxton (A Verbatim Reprint of the First Edition, 1474 they inform us) here http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10672.

I'm sure the board admin would be wuick to draw our attentions to the caveat that this site is heavily bias towards american copyright.

There's a whole host of other old works by Henry Bird and what not on there.

Hope this helps.

Mike Chisholm · Chairman Chisholm Joined: 24 Jul 2007 Posts: 169

In the absence of finding anything productive to do, I've reproduced below an excerpt from H.E Bird's Chess History and Reminiscences on the same site, he puts the current game at arriving in the 12th century. (Albeit, in England.)

Right, it's a sunny day... I reall must nip this frevolity in the bud and get out and about to get stuff done. Hope you find your answers.

"That the assumed great starting point of chess on a board of sixty-four squares (as at
present used), with thirty-two figures, and played by two persons,
was Persia, and that the time was during the reign of Chosroes
Cosrues, or Khosrus (as it is variously written), about A.D.
540, was to the limited few who took any particular interest in the
matter, considered, if not altogether absolutely free from doubt,
certainly one of the best attested facts in early chess history;
whilst the opinions of Sir William Jones (1763), the Rev. R.
Lambe (1764), Hon. Daines Barrington (1787), F. Douce, Esq. (1793),
and Sir Frederick Madden (1832), to the effect that chess first
found its way into England from France after the first Crusade,
at about. A.D. 1100, were, I know--although unfounded and
erroneous--generally accepted as embodying the most probable
theory."

A Muir · King Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 163 Location: Dumbarton

The "Game and Play of the Chesse" is interestingly enough, not a guide to chess stratagies but a moral treatise on the duties of life.

Queen Mary may have sought the following guidance:

"Thus ought the Quene be maad she ought to be a fair lady sittynge in a chayer and crowned wyth a corone on her heed and cladd wyth a cloth of gold & a mantyll aboue furrid wyth ermynes And she shold sytte on the lyfte syde of the kinge for the amplections and enbrasynge of her husbonde lyke as it is sayd in scripture in the canticles".

Therefore it is more likely she used the book as a guide how to deal with her nobles and subjects at the difficult time of the reformation.

Interestingly enough, in the book the pieces move in old style manner. ie king,rook,knight,pawns as current rules but the bishop was an alfyn which could only move two squares diagonally but could jump over other pieces, and the queen could only move one square diagonally.

The current rules were introduced between 1450 and 1500 but the "Game and Play of the Chesse" is a translation of a book written by Jacobus de Cessole about 1300.

Given she reigned in the 1560s, why would she use a book using out-of
date rules, unless it was purely for political, not chess purposes? Perhaps she was not Scotland's first lady player.