Part 6 (1/2)
Opposite Chapter 14 v.25 of 1st of Kings B.C. 958 says: There can be no rational doubt that this s.h.i.+shak was the famous Sesostris the conqueror of Asia. Herodotus, the father of profane history, relates that he, himself, has seen stones in Palestine erected by the Conqueror, and recording his achievements.
It is confidently a.s.serted by the writers of the Eighteenth century, and this, that the ancient Greeks and Romans were totally unacquainted with chess, but a Roman edict of 115. B.C., specially exempting ”Chess and Draughts” from prohibition pa.s.ses un.o.bserved by all the writers; and might have materially qualified their perhaps too hasty and ill-matured conclusions, and have suggested further inquiry into the nature of the sedentary games and amus.e.m.e.nts practiced and permitted by the Romans.
The Roman edict mentioned by Mr. W. B. Donne, in his biographical sketch of Ahenholarbus, 842, has evidently escaped the observation of all writers on the game. Chess and Draughts are specially exempted in it from the list of prohibited games of chance under date B.C. 115. The Hon. Daines Barrington 1787, Sir F. Madden 1832, Herbert Coleridge, Esq., 1854, and Professor Duncan Forbes 1860 are prominent among those who confidently a.s.sert that the Romans as well as the ancient Greeks were quite unacquainted with the game of chess, at least, says Coleridge, without giving any reason for his qualification, before the time of Hadrian. These writers having apparently satisfied themselves that the Romans as well as the Greeks played a game with pebbles, a.s.sume therefore that they knew not chess, but might have known a game something like Draughts. Here in the edict, however, Chess and Draughts are both mentioned inferring a recognized distinction between the two. It seems reasonable to a.s.sume that the writers would have paused and have searched a little deeper into the nature of the sedentary games which the Romans knew and permitted if they had seen this explicit statement. It has never been suggested by any writer that the Romans ever left an inkling or taste for intellectual pastimes in Britain. The name of Agricola or that of any other Roman is not a.s.sociated with any tradition or story of the game, even Aristotle and Alexander the Great and Indian Porus (names we find in Eastern accounts) are names not so familiar in speculatory traditions as to chess, though less remote, than that of Thoth the Egyptian Mercury who Plato says invented chess ”Hermes” (Asiatic M.S.) or the more frequently mentioned Moses, and the Kings of Babylon with their philosophers. The favoured notion that chess (first) came into Europe through the Arabs in Spain about 710 to 715 A.D. may yet prove ill matured and require modification, and for English first knowledge of the game, we may on inferential and presumptive evidence prefer the contemporary period of Offa, Egbert and Alcuin when Charlemagne, the Greek Emperors and the Khalifs of the East so much practised and patronized the game, rather than the conquest or Crusaders theory of origin among us, which is also beside inconsistent with incidents related in the earlier reigns of Athelstan, Edgar and Canute, and moreover is not based upon any direct testimony whatever.
In proof of the ancient use of chess among the Scandinavians.
In the Sages of Ragnar Lodbrog printed in Bioiners collection, and in an ancient account of the Danish invasion of Northumberland in the Ninth century ent.i.tled Nordymbra, it is stated that after the death of Ragnar, messengers were sent to his sons in Denmark by King Alla to communicate the intelligence and to mark their behaviour when they received it. They were thus occupied, Sigurd Snakeseye played at chess with Huitzeck the bold; but Biorn Ironside was polis.h.i.+ng the shaft of a spear in the middle of the hall. As the messengers proceeded with their story Huitzeck and Sigurd dropped their game and listened to what was said with great attention, Ivar put various questions and Biorn leant on the spear he was polis.h.i.+ng. But when the messengers came to the death of the chief, and told his expiring words that the young bears would gnarl their tusks (literally grunt) if they knew their parent's fate, Biorn grasped the handle of his spear so tight with emotion that the marks of his fingers remained on it, and when the tale was finished dashed it in pieces, Huitzeck compressed a chessman he had taken so with his fingers that the blood started from each whilst Sigurd Snakeseye paring his nails with a knife was so wrapped up in attention that he cut himself to the bone without feeling it.
All authorities down to the end of the Eighteenth century, ascribe the first knowledge of chess in England, to the time of the reign of William the Conqueror, or to that of the return of the first Crusaders, some adding not earlier than 1100 A.D., H. T.
Buckle the author and historian who was foremost in skill among chess amateurs, in his references to the game, satisfied apparently with the evidence of Canute's partiality for it, (1017 to 1035) thought it probable that it was familiarly known in England a century or so before that monarch's reign. Sir Frederick Madden writing from 1828 to 1832 at the outset of his highly interesting communications to the Asiatic Society, at first inclined to the Crusaders theory, but upon further investigation later in his articles he arrived at the conclusion that chess might have been known among us in Athelstan's reign from 925 to 941, and Professor Forbes writing from 1854 to 1860 concurred in that view. Both of these authorities after quoting old chess incidents and anecdotes of Pepin's and Charlemagne's times with other references to chess in France, Germany, and Scandinavia, then pa.s.s on to chess in England, and after a.s.serting the probability that the Saxons most likely received chess from their neighbours the Danes then fix apparently somewhat inconsistently so late as the Tenth century for it. They a.s.sert that the tradition of the game having been brought from the North certainly existed, and is mentioned by Gaimar who wrote about the year 1150, when speaking of the mission of Edelwolth from King Edgar to the castle of Earl Orgar, in Devons.h.i.+re to verify the reports of his daughter Elstreuth's beauty. When he arrived at the mansion,
”Orgar juout a un esches, Un gin k'il aprist des Daneis, Od lui juout Elstruat lu bele, Sus ciel n'ont donc tele damesele.”
”Orgar was playing at the chess, A game he had learnt of the Danes, With him played the fair Elstrueth, A fairer maiden was not under heaven.”
Edgar reigned from 958 to 975, English history referring to this incident among the amours of Edgar, make no mention of the Earl of Devons.h.i.+re and his daughter being found playing chess together. Hume says Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar Earl of Devons.h.i.+re and though she had been educated in the country, and had never appeared at court, she had filled all England with the reputation of her beauty.
The mission of Earl Athelwold, his deception of the king, and marriage of Elfrida follows, next the king's discovery, the murder of Athelwold by the King, and his espousal of Elfrida.
This incident with others, such as the presentation to Harold Harf.a.gra, King of Norway of a very fine and rich chess table, and the account of and description of seventy chess men of different sizes belonging to various sets dug up in the parish of Uig, in the Isle of Lewis, are referred to by the writers as the chess allusions of the North, but Sir Frederick Madden who confines himself to the supposition of the Saxons having received the game from the Danes, rather disregards a statement of Strutt, Henry and others, based on a pa.s.sage in the Ramsey chronicle that chess was introduced among the Saxons, so early as the Tenth century.
Forbes however who usually agrees with Madden, sees no improbability in it or grounds for disputing, and thinks that England may have obtained its knowledge from France between the Eighth and Tenth centuries. It is curious that Forbes stops here like Madden and all other writers, he evidently knew nothing of the Roman edict of 115 B.C., and neither of them cast a thought to the earlier reigns of Alfred, Egbert, and Offa, which were contemporary with the Golden Age of Literature in Arabia and the period when chess had so long travelled from Persia to other countries, and was so well known and appreciated in Arabia; Constantinople, Spain, and among the Aquitaines as well as by the Carlovingian Monarchs. Al Walid the first Khalif noted for chess, the most powerful of the house of Umeyyah, who (through his generals Tarak and Musa invaded, conquered, and entered Spain, reigned from 705 to 715 B.C.), and comes before Offa, whose reign commenced five years after the foundation of the mighty Abba.s.side Dynasty, which displaced the first house of Umeyyah, and thirteen years before that of Charlemagne, with whom he was contemporary 26 years, and Egbert was 13 years.
Harun Ar Ras.h.i.+d; of Abba.s.side, the Princess Irene, and the Emperor Nicephorus of Constantinople, and the successors of Harun, viz., Al Amin, Al Mamun, the Great Al Mutasem and Al Wathik (the two last contemporary with our Alfred), all cultivated and practiced chess and the strongest inference, and a far more striking one than any yet adduced, is that we got chess during the long reign of Charlemagne, and his Greek, Arabian and Spanish contemporaries, and this might well happen, for Charlemagne knew both Offa and Egbert (the latter personally), and the knowledge becomes somewhat more than a matter of inference, for the Saxon scholar Alcuin was in England from 790 to 793, on a farewell visit after being domesticated in Charlemagne's household as his treasured friend, adviser, and tutor and preceptor in the sciences for more than twenty years, and could not be otherwise than familiar with the Emperor's practice and enthusiasm for chess, in which he may to some extent have shared. Alcuin would certainly have communicated a game like this, in which he knew other civilized people were taking so much interest, to his countrymen. The connecting links of evidence which Sir F. Madden and Professor Forbes have ill.u.s.trated in Athelstan's and Edgar's reigns, would have been greatly strengthened and confirmed, if they had thought of Alcuin's residence and influence at a court where chess was not only played, but talked about and corresponded upon. Charlemagne's presents included the wonderful chess men which he valued so highly, and with which we are tolerably familiar through the reports of Dr. Hyde, F. Douce, Sir F. Madden, and H. Twiss, and the engravings in Willeman's work, and by Winckelman and Art Journal. These chessmen (still preserved) were perhaps often seen by Alcuin and were possibly also shewn by Charlemagne to the youthful Egbert when in refuge at his court, and on the whole it seems unreasonable to a.s.sume that chess was unknown in England after Alcuin's last sojourn, and during Egbert's reign.
It may be also that on further consideration of the Roman edict and references to their games, and the accounts relating to the fourth century B.C., many will be indisposed to accept the dictum that Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle meant nothing more than a game of pebbles, when they referred to chess and propounded their theories as to its invention.
PERSIA
”Khusra a.n.u.s.h.i.+rawan” Naus.h.i.+rawan or Chosroes as he is more frequently called, being the Byzantine t.i.tle applied to him, was King of Persia and reigned 48 years, from 528 to 576 as stated by some authors, or from 531 to 579 according to others.
He is described also as Chosroes the Just. The receipt of chess in Persia from India early in his reign, and the great appreciation and encouragement of it, is the best attested fact in chess history, if not really the only one as to which there is entire concurrence in opinion among all writers.
The Persian and Arabian historians are unanimous that the game of chess was invented in India, some time previous to the Sixth century of our Era, and was introduced into Persia during the reign of Kisra Naus.h.i.+rawan, the Chosroes of the Byzantine historians, and the contemporary of Justinian, they differ only as to the time of its modification, some ascribing it to about this period, and others to that of Alexander the Great, 336 to 323 B.C.
Although several works concur in stating that chess first came to Persia from India, through Burzuvia the physician, most learned in languages with the materials of the book called Culila Dimna, quite early in Chosroes' reign, some think differently and attribute Burzuvia's mission to India and return to a late date.
It is related from the Shahnama, the great Persian poem that it came from Kanoj, Kanauj, commonly written Canoge, by means of a magnificent emba.s.sy from the King of Hind, accompanied by a train of elephants with rich canopies, together with a thousand camels heavily laden, the whole escorted by a numerous and gallant army of Scindian cavalry. After depositing the various and costly presents, last of all the Amba.s.sador displayed before the King and the astonished court, a chess board, elaborately constructed together with the chessmen, tastefully and curiously carved from solid pieces of ivory and ebony. Then the Amba.s.sador presented a letter richly illumined, written by the hand of the Sovereign of Hind, to Naus.h.i.+rawan the translation of which is given as follows:
The King of Hind's address to Chosroes with the Chess
”O, King, may you live as long as the celestial spheres continue to revolve; I pray of you to examine this chess board, and to lay it before such of your people as are most distinguished for learning and wisdom. Let them carefully deliberate, one with another; and if they can, let them discover the principles of this wonderful game. Let them find out the uses of the various pieces, and how each is to be moved, and in to what particular squares. Let them discover the laws which regulate the evolutions of this mimic army, and the rules applicable to the p.a.w.ns, and to the Elephants, and to the Rukhs (or warriors), and to the Horses, and to the Farzin, and to the King. If they should succeed in discovering the principles and expounding the practice of this rare game, a.s.suredly they will be ent.i.tled to admission into the number of the wise, and in such case I promise to acknowledge myself, as. .h.i.therto, your Majesty's tributary. On the other hand, should you and the wise men of Iran collectively fail in discovering the nature and principles of this cunning game, it will evince a clear proof that you are not our equals in wisdom; and consequently you will have no right any longer to exact from us either tribute or impost.
On the contrary we shall feel ourselves justified in demanding hereafter the same tribute from you; for man's true greatness consists in wisdom, not in territory, and troops, and riches, all of which are liable to decay.”
When Naus.h.i.+rawan had perused the letter from the Sovereign of Hind, long did he ponder over its contents. Then he carefully examined the chess board and the pieces and asked a few questions of the Envoy respecting their nature and use.
The latter, in general terms, replied, Sire, what you wish to know can be learned only by playing the game, suffice it for me, to say, that the board represents a battle field, and the pieces the different species of forces engaged in the combat. Then the King said to the Envoy, grant us the s.p.a.ce of seven days for the purpose of deliberation; on the eighth day we engage to play with you the game, or acknowledge our inferiority.
Then followed the a.s.sembling of the men esteemed learned and wise, the sages of Iran, and seven days of perplexity. At last Buzerjmihr hastened to the presence of Naus.h.i.+rawan and said: ”O, King of victorious destiny, I have carefully examined this board and these pieces, and at length by your Majesty's good fortune, I have succeeded in discovering the nature of the game.
It is a most shrewd and faithful representation of a battle field, which it is proper your Majesty should inspect in the first place.