The Innocent Morality

The History of Chess by HJR Murray was first printed by the Oxford University Press in 1918. Although it has been reprinted within the last decade, it’s not an easy book to find. HJR Murray, the son of the JAH Murray who compiled the original Oxford English Dictionary, was one of those incredible Victorian scholars who were fluent in twelve languages, only three of them living. His 2½-inch thick volume is not relaxing reading, but he did his research in the original Icelandic, Old Middle German, or Early Anglo-Saxon, and kindly translated them into more or less modern English for us. He also included transcripts of many of the original texts in his footnotes and appendices. This article is based primarily on Chapter V of Murray’s work, since nearly all other chess history references claim him as their source.

Everyone who ever took an English Lit class knows about medieval morality plays. Interestingly enough, the "play" was a only variant on the genre. The "morality" was a literary form like "fable" or "parable" — it drew parallels between some aspect of everyday experience and the spiritual, even if the parallels sometimes had to be bent a bit, as it were, to make a match. Once a good theme for a morality had been found, it could be used and re-used, in poetry, in sermons, and in pastoral letters — or in plays.

There is a modern work of this type: "The Soldier’s Deck of Cards." In it, an army private explains his possession of a deck of cards in church by assigning a wide range of symbolic meanings, from 52 weeks in the year to the Jack of spades reminding him of the devil, finally summarizing with "So you see, sir, this deck of cards is my Bible, my almanac, and my prayer book." The writer of this work had a decidedly medieval sensibility.

The "Innocent Morality" ("The Morality of Innocent"), then, is a literary work with a chess theme, dating to the 12th or 13th century. The earliest version is in Latin, but it can be found in the literature of almost every European country from the 13th century on. It is the earliest example of the morality on a chess theme that we have, but modern critics feel that it was probably used in sermons and homilies for some time before it was written down. Once on paper, it was pirated by every cleric in need of a catchy sermon or poet in need of an improving theme.

It says something for the widespread popularity of chess that a morality using it for a theme would have such widespread distribution and such a long life. It apparently could be assumed that anyone capable of profiting from spiritual instruction would be familiar with the basic identity of the pieces and their moves, just as we can assume everyone is familiar with playing cards.

According to Murray, the two most likely authors of the idea of a chess morality are Pope Innocent III and a man named John of Waleys (or Johannes Gallensis, or John Wales). Innocent (c1160–1216), the pope who had to deal with England’s Henry III and his son John, was a prolific sermon-writer.

While Innocent got his name attached to this work for posterity, Murray prefers to credit John of Wales, a Franciscan who taught at Oxford and at Paris between 1260 and 1280. According to Murray, internal evidence shows that the writer was anticlerical (which the Franciscans were, almost by definition), knew 13th-century British law, and — most importantly — played chess according to the English rules.

Reduced to bare bones, here’s what the Innocent Morality had to say.

To begin with, the King moves "in all directions," because the King’s will is law.

The Queen "moves aslant" because women are greedy and underhanded.

The Bishop moves obliquely, which is symbolic of the widespread misuse of the clerical office.

The Knight moves both straight and oblique (one up and one angled — today we think of this as two up and one sideways) which illustrates the two faces of the knightly condition. On the one hand, the Knight "has the legal power of collecting rents, etc." but also he is guilty of "extortions and wrong-doings."

The Rook moves straight — straightforward justice by the King’s officers.

And the poor pawn, plodding forward one step at a time? He moves straight until he is promoted. Then he becomes as greedy and underhanded as the Queen, showing "how hard it is for a poor man to deal rightly when he is raised above his proper station."

Besides these promising observations, there was one additional touch, which is good for a whole sermon all by itself: between games, all the pieces are kept together in a bag on equal terms: It is only when they are in play that there a social difference between them. When the game is over (in the next world), all will be treated equally again.

In the end, to quote Murray’s translation:

This original Latin version dates to the middle of the 13th century in England. About a hundred years later, with the growth of literature in languages other than Latin, there is a French edition. Ger man and Dutch versions appear at the beginning of the 15th century, followed by (roughly in chron ological order) Swedish, English, Scotch, Italian, Catalan, Czech, Castilian, Icelandic, and Estonian. Incorporated into the Gesta Romanorum, our Morality was carried forward into modern times. Murray gives particulars concerning several variations he was able to consult personally.

Caxton. Probably the best-known to us is William Caxton’s edition. Under the title The Game and Play of Chesse, this was the second book printed in English, in 1474. (The first, of course, was the Bible.) Caxton’s is a fairly close translation from the Latin by way of the French, with one interesting exception. Instead of lumping all the "common men" together, he assigns each of the eight pawns on each side to a vocational group. Social historians find this a fascinating indicator of how the English working class came to identify itself in smaller groups. Caxton’s eight orders of pawns were:

laborers, farm workers

smiths, metal workers

drapers, clothworkers, notaries

merchants

physicians, apothecaries, midwives, etc.

taverners, hostelers

city guards

ribalds, players, and jokers.

Cessolis. Jacobus de Cessolis was a Dominican from Lombardy, who lived in the second half of the 13th century. "His" edition of the Morality — Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium — circulated widely in the 14th and 15th centuries in Latin and in local translations.

The main difference between Cessolis and Wales is the issue of "permissible games". Besides local variations in the rules of chess, there existed two recognized versions of the game. One developed into the one we know, but the other was played with dice and was largely a game of chance. On this difference a world of sermons were written. There are many period references to chess being forbidden to the clergy, and usually what was meant was the dice — read gambling — version.

Cessolis identifies Rooks as legates and Bishops as judges. He also gives a slightly different list of pawns.

Ingold. Johannes Ingold, a Dominican from what is now Germany (died 1465), in his work was especially concerned with the Seven Deadly Sins, illustrating each with a game. Besides chess, he refers to cards, music, shooting, dancing, and several games of chance. In his outline, the King is Reason, the Queen Will, the Bishop Memory, the Knight a warrior, and the Rook a judge. The pawns are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Then he takes a second pass at the subject, equating the King with Christ, the Queen with Mary, the Bishop with patriarchs and prophets, the Knights with martyrs, the Rook the apostles, and pawns men on earth.

Gesta Romanorum. There are two versions of this long-lasting and widely distributed work (or, more accurately, collection of works). In the English version, which Murray thinks is the oldest, it is a section entitled "Antonius the Emperor." The King is the soul, the opposing King is the Devil, and the Knight is the Christian. The Bishop (known as the "aufin" or counsellor) is a wise man, who can abuse his wisdom by deceit. The Rook stands for brokers and false merchants "that run about after winning and money, and care not how they are gotten."

The Queen symbolizes women, who "go from chastitie to synne, and are taken by the devil for gloves or other such gifts." The pawn is, as usual, the common man, who has the potential to become a king in heaven; but once he turns aside is taken and sent to hell.

In the continental version, the theme appears twice. One, called "The Game of Chess," was written before 1342, the other some time later. In that 14th century section, the King is Christ and the Queen is the Soul. Knights are militant Christians — the eight squares commanded by the Knight’s move correspond to the eight Beatitudes — and Rooks are judges. One interesting passage concerns Bishops, wise men who can move three squares forward — intellect, reason, and fortitude — or backward — gluttony, robbery, and pride. Murray describes this version as "a hopeless muddle" by the translator, who was apparently working from three or more sources and knew very little about chess.

The second chess-related chapter, called "The Wall Painting," is based on the assignment of vocations to the pawns, and, while it is not explicitly about chess, relates very closely to the original Innocent Morality in its imagery.

Romance of the Chessboard. The latest work Murray examines was written at the end of the 15th century.Taking the allegory structure of the Romance of the Rose as a model, it also reflects a pivotal development in the history of the game. By this time, the type of chess played with dice was losing popularity, but a new variant was developed in which the Queen and the Bishop adopted what had been each other’s moves. Up until this point, the Bishop had had much greater range than the Queen. The game played the new way became known as "Queen’s Chess" and started the development of the powers of the Queen as we know them in the modern game.

The Bishop, incidentally, began as an elephant (al-fil) in the original. The piece distinguished by two points, for the elephants tusks, in the West became known as "The Fool" with his two-pointed headgear. As time went on, the Bishop’s mitre — which also had two points — became better known than the jester’s cap, and the piece gained yet another new identity. In some parts of Europe, the piece was carved as a Bishop’s mitre but referred to as "aufin," a corruption of al-fil.

The basic change that created "Queen’s Chess" was possible because confusion about the Queen was even worse than the muddle about who wore a hat with two points. In the original Arabian game, the piece next to the King had been the Vizier, or ferz. Translated into Spanish, with a little false etymology, it was alfferza, or Standard Bearer (in the feminine form). In the Spanish game, therefore, a standard bearer and elephants take the place of the Queen and Bishops. In the rest of Europe — that part influenced by Germany — it made more sense to acknowledge the role of the church. With the rise of the cult of the Virgin, the Queen of Heaven was seen as being more powerful than an earthly Bishop. It also seemed reasonable to give the King a Queen rather than an advisor (and it caused a lot of raised eyebrows when a pawn could be promoted to Queen while the first one was "still living.")

Take the poetic imagination and the popularity of the allegorical form, and something was bound to be done with this "Game of the Lady." As it happened, sighs Murray, the person who did it apparently knew very little about chess.

In the Romance, the unidentified Lady to whom it is dedicated plays against the Devil for her soul in an allegory on temptation. The King is Charity; the Queen, Humility; one Bishop is Honesty, the other Self-knowledge; the Knights are True Friendship and Truth; the Rooks are Patience and Loyalty; and the Pawns are Love of God, Continence, Devotion, Benevolence, Constancy, Temperance, and Fidelity. (Only seven are named — apparently she has given the Devil odds.) Her adversary plays with Pride for a King, Ambition for a Queen, Pleasure and Hypocrisy for Bishops, Discord and Lies for Knights, Grumbling and Falseness for Rooks, and a pawn array consisting of Self-Love, Curiosity, Inconstancy, Fiction, Slander, Perjury, Blasphemy, and Treason.

So the Devil opens with Self-love and the Lady counters with Continence; he plays Pride and she plays Constancy. While it’s a charming set-up, it’s terrible chess.

Many of the documents that formed the basis for Murray’s History are in the John G. White Collection of Chess and Orientalia at Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library, as are many more chess-related items.

©1998 Jo Anne Fatherly