Aditi Khanna

Chess, a so-called “game of kings”, proved a great equaliser during the medieval era by celebrating intellectual prowess irrespective of race, a University of Cambridge study has claimed.

In ‘Chess and Race in the Global Middle Ages’, historian Dr Krisztina Ilko has collated international evidence to highlight how chess subverted racial stereotypes and structures. She traces the game’s roots, with the Arabic shatranj and Middle Persian chatrang deriving from a variant form of the Sanskrit word chaturanga or four-limbed.

This is reflective of the notion that chess pieces were inspired by the four main constituents of the Indian army of late antiquity – infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants.

“Chess was and remains a game of logic, where intellectual prowess matters," said Dr Ilko.

“Chess operated on a different plane where people could engage with each other as equals, irrespective of their skin colour. What mattered was ‘who's smarter?’, ‘who can win?’, not ‘who's more powerful or socially superior?’

“Chess boards immediately had two contrasting colours and the opposing chess pieces were also differentiated through colour. This allowed medieval people to project ideas of skin colour and race onto the game,” she said.

Her study highlights how the ‘Shahnama’, a major epic narrating Persian history, contains an image depicting how the game of chess was transmitted from India to Iran.

Scholars interpreting the 14th century illustrations have assumed that the Persians depicted the Indian ambassador with dark skin and baggy clothes to underscore his defeat to their vizier, the highest-ranking diplomat in the Persian court.

However, Ilko disputes such an interpretation and believes the differently styled clothing helps to highlight his distinctly foreign identity.

“He is present here not only as a challenger, but also as a champion of the powerful Indian raja, a protagonist who transmits the yet-to-be-discovered game of chess and is thus positioned as a guardian of secret Indian knowledge,” she states.

While racial structures and race thinking were present in the medieval period, the new study shows that these structures and ideas could be countered and that intellectual prowess could empower people to challenge them.

“Chess became a representation of the known world, the people in it and how society should function through orderly moves. Chess was a powerful vehicle for people hailing from widely different places, even civilisations, to interact with each other. It was an intellectual exchange,” said Ilko.

“So much has changed since the Middle Ages but chess is more global than ever. People still play chess because it's fun and this helps us to look at the medieval period in a different way.

“So much that survives and gets taught about this period is religious. It’s especially dominated by a Christian worldview. Chess reveals a more diverse and fun Middle Ages,” she said.

Ilko, from Queen's College at the University of Cambridge, is currently working on a book entitled ‘The Pawns of History: A New Approach towards the Global Middle Ages’.