I have had to take a break from the blog because of family obligations. Now I am back with a series about games and entertainment.
In the second book of The Varangian Chronicles, the courtesan Cyra is rescued by an Antiochene court eunuch named Arpad after she has her tongue cut out. To alleviate the interminable boredom from which she suffers while hidden away in his quarters in the deepest part of the paláti (the palace in the center of Antioch) he brings her a game that he calls shantranj. She is both puzzled and delighted by this game.
Over the past few days, Arpad had come and gone, each time bringing her things, usually flagons of broth. On the fifth day, he judged her mouth healed well enough that he brought her millet porridge, sweetened with honey and cardamom. She could only eat it in the tiniest spoonfuls, leaving her hungry and unsatisfied. With it, he had brought her an elegantly carved game. Each piece was made out of either ivory or ebony. The board was square and consisted of a pattern of dark and light wood blocks, arranged in an alternating pattern. She had seen one before. Once an official from Baghdad had brought such a marvel. He had called it shatranj al-muddawara. Arpad taught her how to play, moving the various pieces across the board. She was a lousy player and he won every time. She failed to see how a lowly pawn could prove the undoing of a king. Were not kings always more powerful than common soldiers? When had she gained anything from whispering simmering lust in the ear of a lowly spearman? It had been a marvelous distraction at first. She moved people across her board in a far different manner. Often Arpad’s duties kept him away all day and shantranj proved to be a welcome diversion when he returned.
Shatranj is a game from which our modern chess is derived. The rules and board have not changed drastically,though Arab manuscripts describe numerous variations and the roles and moves of the Queen and Bishop were different than they are today. Nancy Marie Brown in her book Ivory Vikings tells us that “The Arabic word for chess, shantranj, comes from the Persian chantrang, itself from the Sanskrit chanturanga. Chess seems to have arrived in Persia from India in the mid-500s. By 728 an Arabic poet wrote, ‘I keep you from your inheritance and from the holy crown so that, hindered by my arm, you remain a pawn among the pawns.’”
Nikephoros I, a ninth century Byzantine Emperor, sent word to the Abbasid Caliph, Hurun al-Rashid refusing to pay tribute according to a treaty agreed to by his predecessor Irene of Athens. He writes of Irene, that she must have “considered you as a rook and herself as a pawn.” This tells us that not only was shantranj very well known among the Byzantines at this time, but that the rules of the game had made its way into the vernacular.
Some say that the game spread to Europe through the Islamic conquest of Spain, but there is a legend that Harun al-Rashid sent a set as a gift to Charlemagne. A set survives at the National Library of Paris that is Norman in origin. An incredibly valuable and beautiful version survives, though the collection is split between the National Museum of Scotland and the British Museum in London. They were found on the Scottish island of Lewis. Archaeologists think they were made in Trondheim, Norway. For more about the history behind these pieces, please read Nancy Maria Brown’s wonderful book, Ivory Vikings. However it got to Europe, it proved to be very popular and is now our most well known board game with chess champions the world over competing against one another.
The Arabs and the Byzantines in the East were not the only ones to have board games, nor are the chess pieces carved at Trondheim the only surviving example of gaming in Iron Age Scandinavia. Among the artifacts discovered on the Gokstad ship in Sweden was a taflborð with markings on it played like Nine Men’s Morris.
Dice have also played in almost every culture imaginable, though sometimes the knuckle bones of pigs were used. They were sometimes used for divination purposes, as even the runes are to this day.
Next time we will have a look at some of the more physical forms of games and entertainment that would have been enjoyed by the people in The Varangian Chronicles.
For further reading see:
Ivory Vikings by Nancy Marie Brown
A World of Chess; Its Development and Variations through Centuries and Civilization by Jean-Louis Cazaux, Rick Knowlton
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