#tve chess

[latristereina]

The significance of Lucena’s Arte de axedrez goes far beyond its recreational value, however. The work is not only the first printed book on chess playing; it is also the earliest documentation of a radical alteration in the rules of the game. The change took place quite suddenly in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, transforming the way chess had been played for five hundred years. It is central to my argument that this revolutionary change centers dramatically on the only female piece on the chessboard, the Queen.

Chess historians differ in their determination of the date or country of origin of the “new chess.” The erudite H. J. R. Murray believed that the new moves were invented in Italy, and he cites as evidence Lucena’s prefatory statement that he acquired knowledge of the game on travels to Rome and France. More recent authorities believe the moves originated in either Spain or southern France. Richard Eales, for example, states that “it is hard to ignore the fact that almost all the reliable early evidence is linked with Spain or Portugal” (76). There was, in fact, in a general acknowledgment in the late Middle Ages of Spaniards’ expertise at chess, their skill at the game considered an indication of a high level of civility. In book 2 of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (The book of the courtier), the nobleman Federico Fregoso touts the benefits of chess as a pastime, calling it “a refined and ingenious recreation” (1140). Interestingly, especially in light of Pulgar’s comment on Fernando’s excessive dedication to the game, Don Federico also advises against devoting too much time to the pastime, lest it detract from more serious pursuits. Gaspar Pallavicino responds by praising the Spaniards for their seemingly effortless skill at the game: “there are to be found many Spaniards who excel at chess and at a number of other games, and yet do not study them too exhaustively or neglect other things,” to which Federico replies, “You may take it for granted . . . that they put in a great deal of study, but they conceal it” (140).

Chess scholars also disagree as to when exactly the new rules came into being. There is, however, unanimity in that they replaced the old game with remarkable swiftness. By 1510, the medieval game was obsolete in Spain, Italy, and probably France. By 1550, there is no evidence for its existence anywhere in Europe besides parts of Germany, Scandinavia, and Iceland (Eales, 76). Eales expresses the prevailing scholarly puzzlement over the rapidity with which modern chess replaced the Islamic form that had prevailed throughout the preceding millennium as follows: “The transition from medieval to modern was a complex and gradual process, in almost every area of life. Few historians or readers of history now expect to find specific events which tipped the scales from one age to the next. . . . So it is ironic that the game of chess experienced the only major change in its internal structure in over a thousand years of documented history through a single and dramatic shift in its rules of play at just about this time, the late fifteenth century” (71).

The drastic shift in rules centers dramatically on the Queen. In the old game, identified by Lucena as “old-style chess” [axedrez al viejo], the Queen was far weaker than the Rook or Knight and only slightly stronger than the Bishop (Murray, 776). In the new game, the Queen combines the moves of Rook and Bishop, to become by far the strongest piece on the board. This shift caused a radical alteration in the method and tempo of play. As Murray explains,

the initial stage in the Muslim or mediaeval game, which lasted until the superior forces came into contact, practically ceased to exist; the new Queen and Bishop could exert pressure upon the opponent’s forces in the first half-dozen moves, and could even, under certain circumstances, effect mate in the same period. The player no longer could reckon upon time to develop his forces in his own way; he was compelled to have regard to his opponent’s play from the very first. . . . Moreover, the possibility of converting the comparatively weak Pawn into a Queen of immense strength . . . [meant] it was no longer possible to regard the Pawns as useful only to clear a road by their sacrifice for the superior pieces. Thus the whole course of the game was quickened by the introduction of more powerful forces. (777)

It is important to note that whereas medieval players had been experimenting with extended moves for the Pawn and the Bishop since the thirteenth century, no known medieval precedent for the new Queen exists. The impression that the change in the Queen’s power made on European chess players and theorists is best seen in the names they gave the new game in France and Italy: “chess of the mad lady” [eschés de la dame enragée] and “mad chess” [scacchi alla rabiosa] (Eales, 72). Lucena calls it simply “chess of the lady” [axedrez de la dama].43 Chess authorities have proposed a variety of reasons for the sudden and drastic shift in the power of the Queen. These range from the “impact of the Renaissance” and the “urge toward individual independence,” to the invention of the printing press and the geographical discoveries of Columbus, to the creation of the idealized courtly lady by the Provençal troubadours (Cereceda, 24), to strong female role models such as Joan of Arc or Catherine Sforza (Eales, 76–77; Murray, 778–79).

It is perhaps a measure of the marginalization of Iberia in modern cultural history that no one has related the transformation of the Queen’s power in chess sometime between 1475 and 1496 with the unprecedented strengthening of royal authority simultaneously being effected by a historical queen who was decidedly a queen regnant and not a queen consort. Richard Eales, for example, states confidently that “It is certainly striking that the dominant piece in the new chess should be the queen, the only one with a female name, but no conceivable change in fifteenth-century history can explain it” (77).

It seems likely that the tastes and patronage of a queen who significantly shaped literature, art, and architecture in the final quarter of the fifteenth century also affected the recreational arts. Certainly, Isabel is a far more likely candidate for this distinction than the historically remote Joan of Arc (1412?–31) or the geographically displaced Catherine Sforza (1463–1509) proposed by Eales. Although there is no proof that Isabel’s real and symbolic power caused the transformation in the game itself, we can say that at the very least the recording of that dramatic change was a result of the impression that the absolutist power of this “new kind of queen” made on one aspiring letrado.

- Barbara F. Weissberger, Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power