AMUSEMENTS AFTER DINNER.--GAMBLING.--THE GAME OF CHESS.--ITS
HISTORY.--DICE.--TABLES.--DRAUGHTS.
The dinner hour, even among the highest ranks of society, was, as I
have stated, early in the forenoon; and, except in the case of great
feasts, it appears not to have been customary to sit long after dinner.
Thus a great part of the day was left on people’s hands, to fill up
with some description of amusement or occupation. After the dinner
was taken away, and the ceremony of washing had been gone through,
the wine cup appears to have been at least once passed round, before
they all rose from table. The Camden Society has recently published
an early French metrical romance (“Blonde of Oxford,” by Philippe de
Reimes), which gives us a very interesting picture of the manners of
the thirteenth century. Jean of Dammartin is represented as the son of
a noble family in France, who comes to England to seek his fortune,
and enters the service of an earl of Oxford, as one of the esquires in
his household. There his duty is to attend upon the earl’s daughter,
the lady Blonde, and to serve her at table. “After the meal, they wash
their hands and then go to play, as each likes best, either in forests
or on rivers (_i.e._ hunting or hawking), or in amusements of other
kinds. Jean goes to which of them he likes, and, when he returns, he
often goes to play in the chambers of the countess, with the ladies,
who oblige him to teach them French.” Jean does his best to please
them, for which he was qualified by his education, “For he was very
well acquainted with chamber games, such as chess, tables, and dice,
with which he entertains his damsel (Blonde); he often says ‘check’
and ‘mate’ to her, and he taught her to play many a game:”--
_De jus de cambres seut assés,_
_D’eschés, de tables, et de dés,_
_Dont il sa damoisele esbat;_
_Souvent li dist eschek et mat;_
_De maint jeu à juer l’aprist._
--Blonde of Oxford, l. 399.
This is a correct picture of the usual occupations of the after-part of
the day among the superior classes of society in the feudal ages; and
scenes in accordance with it are often found in the illuminations of
the mediæval manuscripts. One of these is represented in the engraving
(No. 138) on the following page, taken from a manuscript of the
fifteenth century, containing the romance of the “Quatre Fils d’Aymon,”
and preserved in the Library of the Arsenal, in Paris. In the chamber
in front a nobleman and one of the great ladies of his household are
engaged at chess, while in the background we see other ladies enjoying
themselves in the garden, which is shown to us with its summer-house
and its flower-beds surrounded with fences of lattice-work. It may be
remarked, that the attention of the chess-players is withdrawn suddenly
from their game by the entrance of an armed knight, who appears in
another compartment of the illumination in the manuscript.
Of the chamber games enumerated in the foregoing extract from the
romance of “Blonde of Oxford,” that of chess was no doubt looked upon
as by far the most distinguished. To play well at chess was considered
as a very important part of an aristocratic education. Thus, in the
“Chanson de Geste” (metrical romance) of Parise la Duchessse, the son
of the heroine, who was brought up by the king in his palace, had
no sooner reached his fifteenth year, than “he was taught first his
letters, until he had made sufficient progress in them, and then he
learnt to play at tables and chess,” and learnt these games so well,
“that no man in this world was able to mate him:”--
_Quant l’anfès ot xv. anz et compliz et passez,_
_Premiers aprist à lettres, tant qu’il en sot assez;_
_Puis aprist-il as tables et à eschas joier,_
_It n’a ome an cest monde qui l’en peust mater._
--Parise la Duchesse, p. 86.
In this numerous cycle of romances, scenes in which kings and princes,
as well as nobles, are represented as occupying their leisure with the
game of chess, occur very frequently, and sometimes the game forms an
important incident in the story. In “Garin le Loherain,” a messenger
hurries to Bordeaux, and finds count Thiebaut playing at chess with
Berengier d’Autri. Thiebaut is so much excited by his news, that he
pushes the chess-board violently from him, and scatters the chess-men
about the place--
_Thiebaus l’oït, à pou n’enrage vis,_
_Li eschés boute, et le jeu espandit._
--Garin le Loherain, ii. 77.
So, in the same romance, the emperor Pepin, arriving at his camp,
had no sooner entered his tent than, having put on a loose tunic
(_bliaut_), and a mantle, he called for a chess-board, and sat down to
play--
_Eschés demande, si est au jeu assis._
--Ib., ii. 127.
Even Witikind, the king of the pagan Saxons, is represented as amusing
himself with this game. When the messenger, who carried him news
that Charlemagne was on the way to make war upon him, arrived at
“Tremoigne,” the palace of the Saxon king, he found Witikind playing at
chess with Escorfaus de Lutise, and the Saxon queen. Sebile, who was
also well acquainted with the game, looking on--
_A lui joe as eschas Escorfaus de Lutise;_
_Sebile les esgarde, qi do jeu est aprise._
--Chanson des Saxons, i. 91.
Witikind was so angry at this intelligence, that his face “became as
red as a cherry,” and he broke the chess-board to pieces--
_D’ire et de mautalant rugist comme cerise;_
_Le message regarde, le geu peçoie et brise._
In the “Chanson de Geste” of Guerin de Montglaive, the story turns upon
an imprudent act of Charlemagne, who stakes his whole kingdom upon a
game of chess, and losing it to Guerin, is obliged to compound with him
by surrendering to him his right to the city of Montglaive, then in the
possession of the Saracens.
[Illustration: _No. 138. A Mediæval after-dinner Scene._]
These “Chansons de Geste,” formed upon the traditions of the early
Carlovingian period, can only of course be taken as a picture of the
manner of the age at which they were composed, that is, of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, and we know, from historical evidence, that
the picture is strictly true. At that period chess certainly was
what has been termed the royal game. The celebrated Walter Mapes,
writing in the latter half of the twelfth century, gives a curious
anecdote relating to tragical events which had occurred at the court
of Britany, apparently in the earlier part of the same century. Alan
of Britany, perhaps the last of the name who had ruled over that
country, had, at the suggestion of his wife, entrapped a feudatory
prince, Remelin, and subjected him to the loss of his eyes and other
mutilations. Remelin’s son, Wigan, having escaped a similar fate,
made war upon Alan, and reduced him to such extremities that, through
the interference of the king of France, he made his peace with Wigan,
by giving him his daughter in marriage, and thus for many years the
country remained in peace. But it appears that the lady always shared
in her father’s feuds, and looked with exulting contempt on her
father’s mutilated enemy. One day she was playing with her husband at
chess, and, towards the end of the game, Wigan, called away by some
important business, asked one of his knights to take his place at
the chess-board. The lady was the conqueror, and when she made her
last move, she said to the knight, “It is not to you, but to the son
of the mutilated that I say ‘mate.’” Wigan heard this sarcasm, and,
deeply offended, hurried to the residence of his father-in-law, took
him by surprise, and inflicted upon him the same mutilations which
had been experienced by Remelin. Then, returning home, he engaged in
another game with his wife, and, having gained it, threw the eyes and
other parts of which her father had been deprived on the chess-board,
exclaiming, “I say _mate_, to the daughter of the mutilated.” The story
goes on to say that the lady concealed her desire of vengeance, until
she found an opportunity of effecting the murder of her husband.
We need not be surprised if, among the turbulent barons of the middle
ages, the game of chess often gave rise to disputes and sanguinary
quarrels. The curious history of the Fitz-Warines, reduced to writing
certainly in the thirteenth century, gives the following account of
the origin of the feud between king John and Fulk Fitz-Warine, the
outlaw:--“Young Fulk,” we are told, “was bred with the four sons of
king Henry II., and was much beloved by them all except John; for
he used often to quarrel with John. It happened that John and Fulk
were sitting all alone in a chamber playing at chess; John took the
chess-board and struck Fulk a great blow. Fulk felt himself hurt,
raised his foot and struck John in the middle of the stomach, that
his head went against the wall, and he became all weak and fainted.
Fulk was in consternation; but he was glad that there was nobody in the
chamber but they two, and he rubbed John’s ears, who recovered from
his fainting-fit, and went to the king his father, and made a great
complaint. ‘Hold your tongue, wretch,’ said the king, ‘you are always
quarrelling. If Fulk did anything but good to you, it must have been
by your own desert;’ and he called his master, and made him beat him
finely and well for complaining.” Similar incidents recur continually
in the early romances I have just quoted as the “Chansons de Geste,”
which give us so vivid a picture of feudal times. A fatal quarrel of
this kind was the cause of the feud between Charlemagne and Ogier le
Danois. At one of the Easter festivals of the court of Charlemagne, the
emperor’s son, Charles, and Bauduin, the illegitimate son of Ogier,
went to play together. Bauduin and young Charles took a chess-board and
sat down to the game for pastime. “They have arranged their chess-men
on the board. The king’s son first moved his pawn, and young Bauduin
moved his _aufin_ (bishop) backwards. The king’s son thought to press
him very hard, and moves his knight upon the other _aufin_. The one
moved forward and the other backward so long, that young Bauduin said
‘mate’ to him in the corner:”--
_Il et Callos prisent un esquekier,_
_Au ju s’asisent por aus esbanier._
_S’ont lor esches assis sor le tabler._
_Li fix au roi traist son paon premier,_
_Bauduinés traist son aufin arier._
_Li fix au roi le volt forment coitier,_
_Sus l’autre aufin a trait son chevalier._
_Tant traist li uns avant et l’autre arier,_
_Bauduinés li dist mat en l’angler._
--Ogier de Danemarche, l. 3159.
The young prince was furious at his defeat, and, not content with
treating the son of Ogier with the most insulting language, he seized
the chess-board in his two hands, and struck him so violent a blow on
the forehead, that he split his head, and scattered his brains over
the floor. In a well-known illuminated manuscript of the fifteenth
century, in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), containing a copy
of the romance of “Ogier le Danois,” this scene is represented in an
illumination which is copied in our cut No. 139. Similar incidents are
rather common in these old romances. In that of “Parise la Duchesse,”
her young son, brought up as a foundling at the court of the king of
Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to the old nobles. Four of the
sons of the latter conspire to murder him, and it is arranged that
they shall invite him to go and play at chess with them in a retired
cellar, and, having secretly provided themselves with knives, insult
him, in order to draw him into a quarrel, and then stab him to death.
“Hugues,” they said, “will you come with us to play at chess? you may
gain a hundred francs on the gilt chess-board, and at the same time you
will teach us chess and dice; for certainly you know the games much
better than any of us.” Hugues seems to have been conscious of the
frequency of quarrels arising from the game, for it was not until they
had promised him that they would not seek any cause of dispute, that
he accepted their invitation. They then led him into the cellar, and
sat down at the chess-board. “He began by playing with the son of duke
Granier; and each put down a hundred francs in coined money; but he had
soon vanquished and mated them all, that not one of them was able to
mate him:”--
_Au fil au duc Graner comença à juer;_
_Chascuns mist c. frans de deniers moniez;_
_Mais il les a trestoz et vancus et matez,_
_Que il n’i ot i. sol qui l’an poüft mater._
--Parise la Duchesse, p. 105.
Hugues, in kindness, offered to teach them better how to play, without
allowing them to risk their money, but they drew their knives upon him,
and insulted him in the most outrageous terms. He killed the foremost
of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing upon the chess-board for
a weapon, for he was unarmed, he “brained” the other three with it. We
learn from this anecdote that it was the custom in the middle ages to
play at chess for money.
[Illustration: _No. 139. A Quarrel at Chess._]
As I have already remarked, these romances picture to us the manners of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and not those of the Carlovingian
era. The period when the game of chess was first introduced into
western Europe can only be conjectured, for writers of all descriptions
were so much in the habit of employing the notions belonging to their
own time in relating the events of the past, that we can place no
dependence on anything which is not absolute contemporary evidence.
The chess-board and men so long preserved in the treasury of St.
Denis, and said to have belonged to Charlemagne, were, I think,
probably, not older than the eleventh century, and appear to have had
a Byzantine origin. If the game of chess had been known at the court
of Charlemagne, I cannot but think that we should have found some
distinct allusion to it. The earliest mention of this game that we
know is found in a letter from Damianus, cardinal bishop of Ostia,
to Alexander II., who was elected to the papacy in 1061, and enjoyed
it till 1073. Damianus tells the pope how he was travelling with a
bishop of Florence, when, “having arrived in the evening at a hostel,
I withdrew,” he says, “into the cell of a priest, while he remained
with the crowd of travellers in the spacious house. In the morning, I
was informed by my servant that the aforesaid bishop had been playing
at the game of chess; which information, like an arrow, pierced my
heart very acutely. At a convenient hour, I sent for him, and said in
a tone of severe reproof, ‘The hand is stretched out, the rod is ready
for the back of the offender.’ ‘Let the fault be proved,’ said he,
‘and penance shall not be refused.’ ‘Was it well,’ I rejoined, ‘was it
worthy of the character you bear, to spend the evening in the vanity of
chess-play (_in vanitate scachorum_), and defile the hands and tongue,
which ought to be the mediator between man and the Deity? Are you not
aware that, by the canonical law, bishops, who are dice-players, are
ordered to be deposed?’ He, however, making himself a shield of defence
from the difference in the names, said that dice was one thing, and
chess another; consequently that the canon only forbade dice, but
that it tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, ‘Chess,’ I said,
‘is not named in the text, but the general term of dice comprehends
both the games. Wherefore, since dice are prohibited, and chess is
not expressly mentioned, it follows, without doubt, that both kinds
of play are included under one term, and equally condemned?’” This
occurred in Italy, and it is evident from it that the game of chess was
then well known there, though I think we have a right to conclude from
it, that it had not been long known. There appears to be little room
for doubting, that chess was, like so many other mediæval practices,
an oriental invention, that the Byzantine Greeks derived it from the
Saracens, and that from them it came by way of Italy to France.
The knowledge of the game of chess, however, seems to have been
brought more directly from the East by the Scandinavian navigators,
to whom such a means of passing time in their distant voyages, and
in their long nights at home, was most welcome, and who soon became
extraordinarily attached to it, and displayed their ingenuity in
elaborately carving chess-men in ivory (that is, in the ivory of
the walrus), which seem to have found an extensive market in other
countries. In the year 1831, a considerable number of these carved
ivory chess-men were found on the coast of the Isle of Lewis, probably
the result of some shipwreck in the twelfth century, for to that period
they belong. They formed part of at least seven sets, and had therefore
probably been the stock of a dealer. Some of them were obtained by
the British Museum, and a very learned and valuable paper on them was
communicated by sir Frederic Madden to the Society of Antiquaries,
and printed in the twenty-fourth volume of the _Archæologia_. Some of
the best of them, however, remained in private hands, and have more
recently passed into the rich museum of the late lord Londesborough.
We give here two groups of these curious chess-men, taken from the
collection of lord Londesborough, and from those in the British Museum
as engraved in the volume of the _Archæologia_ just referred to. The
first group, forming our cut No. 140, consists of a king (1), from the
collection of lord Londesborough, and a queen (2), bishop (3), and
knight (4), all from the _Archæologia_; and the second group (No. 141)
presents us with the warriors on foot, to which the Icelanders gave the
name of _hrokr_, and to which sir Frederic Madden gives the English
name of warders, one of them (5) from lord Londesborough’s collection,
the other (6) from the British Museum. The rest are pawns, all from the
latter collection; they are generally plain and octagonal, as in the
group to the right (7), but were sometimes ornamented, as in the case
of the other example (8).
[Illustration: _No. 140. Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century._]
It will be seen at once that in name and character these chess-men are
nearly identical with those in common use, although in costume they
are purely Scandinavian. The king sits in the position, with his sword
across his knee, and his hand ready to draw it, which is described as
characteristic of royalty in the old northern poetry. The queen holds
in her hand a drinking horn, in which at great festivals the lady of
the household, of whatever rank, was accustomed to serve out the ale or
mead to the guests. The bishops are some seated, and others standing,
but all distinguished by the mitre, crosier, and episcopal costume.
The knights are all on horseback, and are covered with characteristic
armour. The armed men on foot, just mentioned by the name of warders,
were peculiar to the Scandinavian set of chess-men, and supplied the
place of the rocks, or rooks, in the mediæval game, and of the modern
castle.
[Illustration: _No. 141. Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century._]
Several of the chess-men had indeed gone through more than one
modification in their progress from the East. The Arabs and Persians
admitted no female among the persons on their chess-board, and the
piece which we call the queen was with them the _pherz_ (vizier or
councillor). The oriental name, under the form _fers_, _ferz_, or
_ferce_, in Latin _ferzia_, was long preferred in the middle ages,
though certainly as early as the twelfth century the original character
of the piece had been changed for that of a queen, and the names _fers_
and queen became synonymous. It is hardly necessary to say that a
bishop would not be found on a Saracenic chess-board. This piece was
called by the Persians and Arabs _pil_ or _phil_, meaning an elephant,
under the form of which animal it was represented. This name was also
preserved in its transmission to the west, and with the Arab article
prefixed became _alfil_, or more commonly _alfin_, which was again
softened down into _aufin_, the usual name of the piece in the old
French and English writers. The character of the bishop must have
been adopted very early among the Christians, and it is found under
that character among the Northerns, and in England. Such, however,
was not the case everywhere. The Russians and Swedes have preserved
the original name of the elephant. In Italy and France this piece was
sometimes represented as an archer; and at an early period in the
latter country, from a supposed confusion of the Arabic _fil_ with
the French _fol_, it was sometimes called by the latter name, and
represented as a court jester. _Roc_, the name given by the Saracens to
the piece now called the castle, meant apparently a hero, or champion,
Persian _rokh_; the name was preserved in the middle ages, but the
piece seems to have been first represented under the character of
an elephant, and it was no doubt, from the tower which the elephant
carried on its back, that our modern form originated. The Icelanders
seem alone to have adopted the name in its original meaning, for with
them, as shown in cut No. 141, the _hrokr_ is represented as a warrior
on foot.
[Illustration: _No. 142. Chess-man of the Thirteenth Century._]
A few examples of carved chess-men have been found in different parts
of England, which show that these highly-ornamented pieces were in
use at all periods. One of these, represented in our cut No. 142, is
preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and, to judge by the
costume, belongs to the earlier part of the thirteenth century. Its
material is the tooth of the walrus (the northern ivory); it represents
a knight on both sides, one wielding a lance, the other a sword, the
intervening spaces being filled with foliage. Another knight, made of
real ivory, is represented in our cut No. 143, taken from an engraving
in the third volume of the _Archæological Journal_, where it is stated
to be in the possession of the Rev. J. Eagles, of Worcester. It belongs
to the reign of Edward III. Here the knight is on horseback, and
wears chain-mail and plate. The body of the horse is entirely covered
with chain-mail, over which housings are placed, and the head with
plate-armour.
[Illustration: _No. 143. Chess-man of the Fourteenth Century._]
All who are acquainted with the general character of mediæval carving
will suppose that these ornamental chess-men were of large dimensions,
and consequently rather clumsy for use. The largest of those found in
the Isle of Lewis, a king, is upwards of four inches in height, and
nearly seven inches in circumference. They were hence rather formidable
weapons in a strong hand, and we find them used as such in some of the
scenes of the early romances. According to one version of the death of
Bauduin, the illegitimate son of Ogier, the young prince Charles struck
him with the rook so violent a blow that he made his two eyes fly out:--
_Là le dona Callos le cop mortel_
_Si com juoit as eskés et as dés;_
_Là le feri d’un rok par tel fiertés,_
_Que andus les elx li fist du cief voler._
--Ogier de Danemarche, l. 90.
A rather rude illumination is one of the manuscripts, of which M.
Barrois has given a fac-simile in his edition of this romance,
representing Charles striking his opponent with the rook. According
to another version of the story, the young prince, using the rook as
a missile, threw it at him. An incident in the romance of the “Quatre
Fils d’Aymon,” where the agents of Regnault go to arrest the duke
Richard of Normandy, and find him playing at chess, is thus told
quaintly in the English version, printed by Copeland:--“When duke
Richarde saw that these sergeauntes had him thus by the arm, and helde
in his hande a lady of ivery, wherewith he would have given a mate to
Yonnet, he withdrew his arme, and gave to one of the sergeauntes such a
stroke with it into the forehead, that he made him tumble over and over
at his feete; and than he tooke a rooke, and smote another withall upon
his head, that he all to-brost it to the brayne.”
[Illustration: _No. 144. An Early Chess-board and Chess-men._]
The chess-boards were naturally large, and were sometimes made of
the precious metals, and of other rich materials. In one romance,
the chess-board and men are made of crystal; in another, that of
“Alexander,” the men are made of sapphires and topazes. A chess-board,
preserved in the museum of the Hôtel de Cluny, at Paris, and said to
have been the one given by the old man of the mountains (the sheikh of
the Hassassins) to St. Louis, is made of rock-crystal, and mounted in
silver gilt. In the romances, however, the chess-board is sometimes
spoken of as made of _ormier_, or elm. In fact, when the game of
chess came into extensive use, it became necessary not only to make
the chess-board and men of less expensive materials and smaller, but
to give to the latter simple conventional forms, instead of making
them elaborate sculptures. The foundation for this latter practice
had already been laid by the Arabs, whose tenets, contrary to those
of the Persians, proscribed all images of living beings. The mediæval
conventional form of the rook, a figure with a bi-parted head, somewhat
approaching to the heraldic form of the fleur-de-lis, appears to
have been taken directly from the Arabs. The knight was represented
by a small upright column, the upper part of it bent to one side,
and is supposed to have been meant for a rude representation of the
horse’s head. The aufin, or bishop, had the same form as the knight,
except that the bent end was cleft, probably as an indication of the
episcopal mitre. The accompanying figure of a chess-board (No. 144),
taken from a manuscript of the earlier part of the fourteenth century
(MS. Cotton. Cleopat. B. ix.), but no doubt copied from one of the
latter part of the thirteenth century, when the Anglo-Norman metrical
treatise on chess which it illustrates was composed, gives all the
conventional forms of chess-men used at that time. The piece at the
left-hand extremity of the lower row is evidently a king. The other
king is seen in the centre of the upper row. Immediately to the left of
the latter is the queen, and the two figures below the king and queen
are knights, while those to the left of the queen and white knight are
rooks. Those in the right-hand corner, at top and bottom, are aufins,
or bishops. The pawns on this chess-board bear a striking resemblance
to those found in the Isle of Lewis. The same forms, with very slight
variations, present themselves in the scenes of chess-playing as
depicted in the illuminated manuscripts. Thus, in a manuscript of
the French prose romance of “Meliadus,” in the British Museum (MS.
Addit. No. 12,228, fol. 23, v^o), written between the years 1330 and
1350, we have an interesting sketch (given in our cut No. 145) of two
kings engaged in this game. The rooks and the bishops are distinctly
represented, but the others are less easily recognised, in consequence
of the imperfect drawing. Our next cut (No. 146) is taken from the
well-known manuscript of the poetry of the German Minnesingers, made
for Rudiger von Manesse, early in the fourteenth century, and now
preserved in the National Library in Paris, and represents the prince
poet, Otto of Brandenburg, playing at chess with a lady. We have
here the same conventional forms of chess-men, a circumstance which
shows that the same types prevailed in England, France, and Germany.
Another group, in which a king is introduced playing at chess, forms
the subject of our cut No. 147, and is taken from a manuscript of the
thirteenth century, in the Harleian collection in the British Museum
(No. 1275), consisting of a numerous series of illustrations of the
Bible history, executed evidently in England. It will be seen that the
character of chess as a royal game is sustained throughout.
[Illustration: _No. 145. A Royal Game at Chess._]
[Illustration: _No. 146. A Game at Chess in the Fourteenth Century._]
[Illustration: _No. 147. A King at Chess._]
In this century the game of chess had become extremely popular among
the feudal aristocracy--including under that head all who could aspire
to knighthood. Already, in the twelfth century, directions for the
game had been composed in Latin verse, which seems to show that, in
spite of the zeal of men like cardinal Damianus, it was popular among
the clergy. Towards the latter end of the thirteenth century, a French
dominican friar, Jacques de Cessoles, made the game the subject of
a moral work, entitled _Moralitas de Scaccario_, which became very
popular in later times, was published in a French version by Jean
de Vignay, and translated from this French version into English, by
Caxton, in his “Boke of Chesse,” so celebrated among bibliographers.
To the age of Jacques de Cessoles belongs an Anglo-Norman metrical
treatise on chess, of which several copies are preserved in manuscript
(the one I have used is in MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol. 161, v^o), and
which presents us with the first collection of games. These games are
distinguished by quaint names, like those given to the old dances; such
as _de propre confusion_ (one’s own confusion), _ky perde, sey sauve_
(the loser wins), _ky est larges, est sages_ (he that is liberal is
wise), _meschief fet hom penser_ (misfortune makes a man reflect), _la
chace de ferce et de chivaler_ (the chace of the queen and the knight),
_de dames et de damyceles_ (ladies and damsels), _la batalie de rokes_
(the battle of the rooks), and the like.
It is quite unnecessary to attempt to point out the numerous allusions
to the game of chess during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
when it continued to be extremely popular. Chaucer, in one of his
minor poems, the “Boke of the Duchesse,” introduces himself in a dream
as playing at chess with Fortune, and speaks of false moves, as though
dishonest tricks were sometimes practised in the game. He tells us,--
_At chesse with me she gan to pleye,_
_With hir fals draughtes_ (moves) _dyvers
_She staale on me, and toke my fers_ (queen);
_And whanne I saugh my fers awaye,_
_Allas! I kouthe no lenger playe,_
_But seyde, “Farewel, swete! ywys,_
_And farewel al that ever ther ys!”_
_Therwith Fortune seyde, “Chek here!”_
_And “mate” in the myd poynt of the chekkere_ (chess-board),
_With a powne_ (pawn) _errante, allas!_
_Ful craftier to pleye she was_
_Than Athalus, that made the game_
_First of the chesse, so was hys name._
--ROBERT BELL’S Chaucer, vol. vi. p. 157.
With the breaking up of feudalism, the game of chess seems to have gone
to a great extent out of practice, and made way for a comparatively
new game,--that of cards, which now became very popular. When Caxton
printed his “Boke of Chesse” in 1474, he sought only to publish a
moral treatise, and not to furnish his countrymen with a book of
instructions in the game. The cut of the chess-player given in this
book, copied in our cut No. 148, shows some modifications in the forms
of the chess-men. The knight, the rook, and the pawn, have preserved
their old forms; but we are led to suppose, by the number of pieces
with the bi-partite head, that the bishop had assumed a shape nearly
resembling that of the rook. We have just seen Chaucer alluding to one
of the legends relating to the origin of this game. Caxton, after Jean
de Vignay and Jacques de Cessoles, gives us a strange story how it was
invented under Evylmerodach, king of Babylon, by a philosopher, “whyche
was named in Caldee Exerses, or in Greke Philemetor.”
[Illustration: _No. 148. Chess in the Fifteenth Century._]
[Illustration: _No. 149. An Italian Chess-board._]
Meanwhile, the game of chess had continued to flourish in Italy, where
it appears to have experienced improvements, and where certainly the
forms of the men were considerably modified. An Italian version of the
work of Jacques de Cessoles was printed at Florence in 1493, under the
title of _Libro de Giuocho delli Scacchi_, among the engravings to
which, as in most of the editions of that work, there is a picture of
a group of chess-players, who are here seated at a round table. The
chess-board is represented in our cut, No. 149, and it will be seen at
a glance that the chess-men present a far greater resemblance to those
used at the present day than those given in the older illuminations.
Within a few years of the date of this book, a Portuguese, named
Damiano, who was perhaps residing in Italy, as his work seems to have
appeared there first, drew up a book of directions for chess with a
set of eighty-eight games, which display considerable ingenuity. An
edition of this book was published at Rome as early as 1524, and
perhaps this was not the first. The figures of the chess-men are given
in this treatise; that of the king is vase-shaped, not unlike our
modern chess-king, but with two crowns; the queen is similar in shape,
but has one crown; the _delfino_ (bishop) differs from them in being
smaller, and having no crown; the _cavallo_ (knight) has the form of
a horse’s head; the _rocho_, as it is still called, is in the form of
a tower, like our modern castle; and the _pedona_ (pawn) resembles a
cone, with a knob at the apex. In England, the game of chess seems
not to have been much in vogue during the sixteenth century; it is, I
believe, only alluded to once in Shakespeare, in a well-known scene
in the Tempest, which may have been taken from a foreign story, to
which he owed his plot. The name of the game had been corrupted into
_chests_ or _cheasts_. The game of chess was expressly discouraged by
our “Solomon,” James I., as “overwise and philosophicke a folly.” An
attempt to bring it into more notice appears to have been made early
in the reign of Elizabeth, under the patronage of lord Robert Dudley,
afterwards the celebrated earl of Leicester, who displayed on many
occasions a taste for refinements of this sort. Instructions were again
sought from Italy through France; for there was printed and published
in London, in the year 1562, a little volume dedicated to lord Robert
Dudley, under the title of “The Pleasaunt and wittie Playe of the
Cheasts reniewed, with Instructions both to Learn it Easily and to
Play it Well; lately translated out of Italian into French, and now
set forth in Englishe by James Rowbotham.” Rowbotham gives us some
remarks of his own on the character of the game, and on the different
forms of the chess-men, which are not uninteresting. He says:--“As
for the fashion of the pieces, that is according to the fantasie of
the workman, which maketh them after this manner. Some make them lyke
men, whereof the kynge is the highest, and the queene (whiche some
name amasone or ladye) is the next, bothe two crowned. The bishoppes
some name alphins, some fooles, and some name them princes, lyke as
also they are next unto the kinge and the queene, other some cal them
archers, and thei are fashioned accordinge to the wyll of the workeman.
The knights some call horsemen, and thei are men on horse backe. The
rookes some cal elephantes, cariyng towres upon their backes, and men
within the towres. The paunes some cal fote men, as they are souldiours
on fote, cariyng some of them pykes, other some harquebushes, other
some halbards, and other some the javelyn and target. Other makers of
cheastmen make them of other fashions; but the use thereof wyll cause
perfect knowledge.” “Our Englishe cheastmen,” he adds, “are commonly
made nothing like unto these foresayde fashions: to wit, the kynge is
made the highest or longest; the queene is longest nexte unto him; the
bishoppe is made with a sharpe toppe, and cloven in the middest not
muche unlyke to a bishop’s myter; the knight hath his top cut asloope,
as thoughe beynge dubbed knight; the rooke is made lykest to the kynge
and the queene, but that he is not so long; the paunes be made the
smalest and least of all, and thereby they may best be knowen.”
At an early period the German tribes, as known to the Romans, were
notoriously addicted to gambling. We are informed by Tacitus that
a German in his time would risk not only his property, but his own
personal liberty, on a throw of the dice; and if he lost, he submitted
patiently, as a point of honour, to be bound by his opponent, and
carried to the market to be sold into slavery. The Anglo-Saxons appear
to have shared largely in this passion, and their habits of gambling
are alluded to in different writers. A well-known writer of the first
half of the twelfth century, Ordericus Vitalis, tells us that in his
time even the prelates of the church were in the habit of playing at
dice. A still more celebrated writer, John of Salisbury, who lived a
little later in the same century, speaks of dice-playing as being then
extremely prevalent, and enumerates no less than ten different games,
which he names in Latin, as follows:--_tessera_, _calculus_, _tabula_
(tables), _urio vel Dardana pugna_ (Troy fight), _tricolus_, _senio_
(sice), _monarchus_, _orbiculi_, _taliorchus_, and _vulpes_ (the game
of fox).--“De Nugis Curialium,” lib. i. c. 5. The sort of estimation in
which the game was then held is curiously illustrated by an anecdote in
the Carlovingian romance of “Parise la Duchesse,” where the king of the
Hungarians wishes to contrive some means of telling the real character
(aristocratic or plebeian) of his foundling, young Hugues, not then
known to be the son of the duchess Parise. A party of robbers (which
appears not to have been a specially disreputable avocation among the
Hungarians of the romance) are employed, first to seduce the youth to
“the chess and the dice,” and afterwards to lead him against his will
to a thieving expedition, the object of which was to rob the treasury
of the king, his godfather. They made a great hole in the wall, and
thrust Hugues through it. The youth beheld the heaps of gold and silver
with astonishment, but, resolved to touch none of the wealth he saw
around him, his eyes fell upon a coffer on which lay three dice, “made
and pointed in fine ivory”--
_Garde for i. escrin, si a veu iij. dez,_
_Qui sont de fin yvoire et fait et pointuré._
--Parise la Duchesse, p. 94.
Hugues seized the three dice, thrust them into his bosom, and,
returning through the breach in the wall, told the robbers that he had
carried away “the worth of four cities.” When the robbers heard his
explanation, they at once concluded, from the taste he had displayed
on this occasion, that he was of gentle blood, and the king formed the
same opinion on the result of this trial.
During the period of which we are now speaking--the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries--the use of dice had spread itself from the
highest to the very lowest class of the population. In its simpler
form, that of the game of hazard, in which the chance of each player
rested on the mere throw of the dice, it was the common game of the
low frequenters of the taverns,--that class which lived upon the vices
of society, and which was hardly looked upon as belonging to society
itself. The practice and results of gambling are frequently referred
to in the popular writers of the later middle ages. People could no
longer stake their personal liberty on the throw, but they played for
everything they had--even for the clothes they carried upon them, on
which the tavern-keepers, who seem to have acted also as pawnbrokers,
readily lent small sums of money. We often read of men who got into the
taverner’s hands, playing as well as drinking themselves naked; and in
a well-known manuscript of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS.
Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 167 v^o) we find an illumination which represents
this process very literally (cut No. 150). One, who is evidently the
more aged of the two players, is already perfectly naked, whilst the
other is reduced to his shirt. The illuminator appears to have intended
to represent them as playing against each other till neither had
anything left, like the two celebrated cats of Kilkenny, who ate one
another up until nothing remained but their tails.
[Illustration: _No. 150. Mediæval Gamblers._]
[Illustration: _No. 151. A Dice-Player._]
A burlesque parody on the church service, written in Latin, perhaps
as early as the thirteenth century, and printed in the “_Reliquiæ
Antiquæ_,” gives us rather a curious picture of tavern manners at
that early period. The document is profane,--much more so than any of
the parodies for which Hone was prosecuted; but it is only a moderate
example of the general laxness in this respect which prevailed, even
among the clergy, in what have been called “the ages of faith.” This is
entitled “The Mass of the Drunkards,” and contains a running allusion
to the throwing of the three dice, and to the loss of clothing which
followed; but it is full of Latin puns on the words of the church
service, and the greater part of it would not bear a translation.
It will have been already remarked that, in all these anecdotes and
stories, the ordinary number of the dice is three. This appears to have
been the number used in most of the common games. In our cut No. 151,
taken from the illumination in a copy of Jean de Vignay’s translation
of Jacobus de Cessolis (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), the dice-player appears
to hold but two dice in his hand; but this is to be laid solely to
the charge of the draughtsman’s want of skill, as the text tells us
distinctly that he has three. We learn also from the text, that in the
jug he holds in his right hand he carries his money, a late example of
the use of earthen vessels for this purpose. Two dice were, however,
sometimes used, especially in the game of hazard, which appears to
have been the great gambling game of the middle ages. Chaucer, in the
“Pardoneres Tale,” describes the hazardours as playing with two dice.
But in the curious scene in the “Towneley Mysteries” (p. 241), a work
apparently contemporary with Chaucer, the tormentors, or executioners,
are introduced throwing for Christ’s unseamed garment with three dice;
the winner throws fifteen points, which could only be thrown with that
number of dice.
[Illustration: _No. 152. Ornamental Dice._]
It would not seem easy to give much ornamentation to the form of dice
without destroying their utility, yet this has been attempted at
various times, and not only in a very grotesque but in a similar manner
at very distant periods. This was done by giving the die the form of a
man, so doubled up, that when thrown he fell in different positions,
so as to show the points uppermost, like an ordinary die. The smaller
example represented in our cut No. 152 is Roman, and made of silver,
and several Roman dice of the same form are known. It is singular that
the same idea should have presented itself at a much later period,
and, as far as we can judge, without any room for supposing that it
was by imitation. Our second example, which is larger than the other,
and carved in box-wood, is of German work, and apparently as old as
the beginning of the sixteenth century. Both are now in the fine and
extensive collection of the late lord Londesborough.
[Illustration: _No. 153. A Party at Tables._]
The simple throwing of the dice was rather an excitement than an
amusement; and at an early period people sought the latter by a
combination of the dice-throwing with some other system of movements
or calculations. In this way, no doubt, originated the different
games enumerated by John of Salisbury, the most popular of which was
that of tables (_tabula_ or _tabulæ_). This game was in use among
the Romans, and was in all probability borrowed from them by the
Anglo-Saxons, among whom it was in great favour, and who called the
game _tæfel_ (evidently a mere adoption of the Latin name), and the
dice _teoselas_ and _tæfel-stanas_. The former evidently represents
the Latin _tessellæ_, little cubes; and the latter seems to show
that the Anglo-Saxon dice were usually made of stones. At a later
period, the game of _tables_, used nearly always in the plural, is
continually mentioned along with chess, as the two most fashionable and
aristocratic games in use. An early and richly illuminated manuscript
in the British Museum--perhaps of the beginning of the fourteenth
century (MS. Harl. No. 1257)--furnishes us with the figures of players
at tables represented in our cut No. 153. The table, or board, with
bars or points, is here clearly delineated, and we see that the players
use both dice and men, or pieces--the latter round discs, like our
modern draughtsmen. In another manuscript, belonging to a rather later
period of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol. 157, v^o),
we have a diagram which shows the board as composed of two tables,
represented in our cut No. 154. It was probably this construction which
caused the name to be used in the plural; and as the Anglo-Saxons
always used the name in the singular, as is the case also with John
of Salisbury in the twelfth century, while the plural is always used
by the writers of a later date, we seem justified in concluding that
the board used by the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans consisted of one
table, like that represented in our cut No. 153, and that this was
afterwards superseded by the double board. It is hardly necessary to
point out to our readers that these two pictures of the boards show
us clearly that the mediæval game of tables was identical with our
modern backgammon, or rather, we should perhaps say, that the game of
backgammon, as now played, is one of the games played on the tables.
[Illustration: _No. 154. A Table-Board (Backgammon) of the Fourteenth
Century._]
In the manuscript last quoted (MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii.) the figure of
the board is given to illustrate a very curious treatise on the game
of tables, written in Latin, in the fourteenth, or even perhaps in the
thirteenth, century. The writer begins by informing us, that “there
are many games at tables with dice, of which the first is the long
game, and is the game of the English, and it is common, and played as
follows” (_multi sunt ludi ad tabulas cum taxillis, quorum primus est
longus ludus, et est ludus Anglicorum, et est communis, et est talis
naturæ_), meaning, I presume, that it was the game usually played in
England. From the directions given for playing it, this game seems to
have had a close general resemblance to backgammon. The writer of the
treatise says that it was played with three dice, or with two dice, in
which latter case they counted six at each throw for the third dice.
In some of the other games described here, two dice only were used. We
learn from this treatise the English terms for two modes of winning
at the “long game” of tables--the one being called “lympoldyng,” the
other “lurchyng;” and a person losing by the former was said to be
“lympolded.” The writer of this tract gives directions for playing at
several other games of tables, and names some of them--such as “paume
carie,” the Lombard’s game (_ludus Lombardorum_), the “imperial,” the
“provincial,” “baralie,” and “faylys.”
This game continued long to exist in England under its old name of
_tables_. Thus Shakespeare:--
_This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,_
_That, when he plays at_ tables, _chides the dice_.
--Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act v. Sc. 2.
The game appears at this time to have been a favourite one in the
taverns and ordinaries. Thus, in a satirical tract in verse, printed in
1600, we are told of--
_An honest vicker, and a kind consort,_
_That to the alehouse friendly would resort,_
_To have a game at_ tables _now and than,_
_Or drinke his pot as soone as any man_.
--Letting of Humours Blood, 1600.
And one of the most popular of the satirical writers of that period,
Dekker, in his “Lanthorne and Candle-Light,” printed in 1620, says,
punningly,--“And knowing that your most selected gallants are the
onelye _table-men_ that are plaid withal at ordinaries, into an
ordinarye did he most gentleman-like convay himselfe in state.” We
learn from another tract of the same author, the “Gul’s Hornbooke,”
that the table-men at this time were usually painted.
We hardly perceive how the name of tables disappeared. It seems
probable that at this time the game of tables meant simply what we now
call backgammon, a word the oldest mention of which, so far as I have
been able to discover, occurs in Howell’s “Familiar Letters,” first
printed in 1646. It is there written _baggamon_. In the “Compleat
Gamester,” 1674, backgammon and ticktack occur as two distinct games at
what would have formerly been called tables; and another similar game
was called Irish. Curiously enough, in the earlier part of the last
century the game of backgammon was most celebrated as a favourite game
among country parsons.
Another game existing in the middle ages, but much more rarely alluded
to, was called _dames_, or ladies, and has still preserved that name
in French. In English, it was changed for that of _draughts_, derived
no doubt from the circumstance of _drawing_ the men from one square to
another. Our cut No. 155, taken from a manuscript in the British Museum
of the beginning of the fourteenth century, known commonly as Queen
Mary’s Psalter (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), represents a lady and gentleman
playing at dames, or draughts, differing only from the character of the
game at the present day in the circumstance that the draughtsmen are
evidently square.
[Illustration: _No. 155. A Game at Draughts._]
[Illustration: _No. 156. Cards in the Fourteenth Century._]
The mediæval games were gradually superseded by a new contrivance,
that of playing-cards, which were introduced into Western Europe in
the course of the fourteenth century. It has been suggested that the
idea of playing-cards was taken from chess--in fact, that they are the
game of chess transferred to paper, and without a board, and they are
generally understood to have been derived from the East. Cards, while
they possessed some of the characteristics of chess, presented the same
mixture of chance and skill which distinguished the game of tables. An
Italian writer, probably of the latter part of the fifteenth century,
named Cavelluzzo, author of a history of Viterbo, states that “in the
year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from
the country of the Saracens, and is with them called _naib_.” Cards are
still in Spanish called _naipes_, which is said to be derived from the
Arabic: but they were certainly known in the west of Europe before the
date given by Cavelluzzo. Our cut No. 156 is taken from a very fine
manuscript of the romance of “Meliadus,” in the British Museum (MS.
Addit. 12,228, fol. 313, v^o), which was written apparently in the
south of France between the years 1330 and 1350; it represents a royal
party playing at cards, which was therefore considered at that time as
the amusement of the highest classes of society. They are, however,
first distinctly alluded to in history in the year 1393. In that year
Charles VI. of France was labouring under a visitation of insanity; and
we find in the accounts of his treasurer, Charles Poupart, an entry to
the following effect:--“Given to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for
three packs of cards, gilt and diversly coloured, and ornamented with
several devices, to deliver to the lord the king for his amusement,
fifty-six sols of Paris.” It is clear from this entry that the game of
cards was then tolerably well known in France, and that it was by no
means new, though it was evidently not a common game, and the cards
had to be made by a painter--that is, as I suppose, an illuminator of
manuscripts. We find as yet no allusion to them in England: and it is
remarkable that neither Chaucer, nor any of the numerous writers of his
and the following age, ever speak of them. An illuminated manuscript
of apparently the earlier part of the fifteenth century, perhaps of
Flemish workmanship (it contains a copy of Raoul de Presle’s French
translation of St. Augustine’s “Civitas Dei”), presents us with another
card-party, which we give in our cut No. 157. Three persons are here
engaged in the game, two of whom are ladies. After the date at which
three packs of cards were made for the amusement of the lunatic king,
the game of cards seems soon to have become common in France; for less
than four years later--on the 22nd of January, 1397--the provost of
Paris considered it necessary to publish an edict, forbidding working
people to play at tennis, bowls, dice, _cards_, or ninepins, on working
days. By one of the acts of the synod of Langres, in 1404, the clergy
were expressly forbidden to play at cards. These had now made their
way into Germany, and had become so popular there, that early in the
fifteenth century card-making had become a regular trade.
[Illustration: _No. 157. Cards in the Fifteenth Century._]
In England, in the third year of the reign of Edward IV. (1463), the
importation of playing-cards, probably from Germany, was forbidden,
among other things, by act of parliament; and as that act is understood
to have been called for by the English manufacturers, who suffered
by the foreign trade, it can hardly be doubted that cards were then
manufactured in England on a rather extensive scale. Cards had then,
indeed, evidently become very popular in England; and only twenty
years afterwards they are spoken of as the common Christmas game, for
Margery Paston wrote as follows to her husband, John Paston, on the
24th of December in 1483:--“Please it you to weet (know) that I sent
your eldest son John to my lady Morley, to have knowledge of what
sports were used in her house in the Christmas next following after
the decease of my lord her husband; and she said that there were none
disguisings, nor harpings, nor luting, nor singing, nor none loud
disports, but playing at the tables, and the chess, and _cards_--such
disports she gave her folks leave to play, and none other.... I sent
your younger son to the lady Stapleton, and she said according to my
lady Morley’s saying in that, and as she had seen used in places of
worship (_gentlemen’s houses_) there as she had been.”
From this time the mention of cards becomes frequent. They formed the
common amusement in the courts of England and Scotland under the reigns
of Henry VII. and James IV.; and it is recorded that when the latter
monarch paid his first visit to his affianced bride, the young princess
Margaret of England, “he founde the quene playing at the cardes.”
It must not be forgotten that it is partly to the use of playing cards
that we owe the invention which has been justly regarded as one of the
greatest benefits granted to mankind. The first cards, as we have seen,
were painted with the hand. They were subsequently made more rapidly
by a process called stencilling--that is, by cutting the rude forms
through a piece of pasteboard, parchment, or thin metal, which, placed
on the cardboard intended to receive the impression, was brushed
over with ink or colour, which passed through the cut out lines, and
imparted the figure to the material beneath. A further improvement was
made by cutting the figures on blocks of wood, and literally printing
them on the cards. These card-blocks are supposed to have given the
first idea of wood-engraving. When people saw the effects of cutting
the figures of the cards upon blocks, they began to cut figures of
saints on blocks in the same manner, and then applied the method to
other subjects, cutting in like manner the few words of necessary
explanation. This practice further expanded itself into what are called
block-books, consisting of pictorial subjects, with copious explanatory
text. Some one at length hit upon the idea of cutting the pages of
a regular book on so many blocks of wood, and taking impressions on
paper or vellum, instead of writing the manuscript; and this plan was
soon further improved by cutting letters or words on separate pieces
of wood, and setting them up together to form pages. The wood was
subsequently superseded by metal. And thus originated the noble art of
PRINTING.