{"id":21167,"date":"2026-04-19T11:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T09:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesmartcityjournal.cibeles.net\/sin-categoria\/medieval-chess-promoted-racial-harmony\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T11:23:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T09:23:34","slug":"medieval-chess-promoted-racial-harmony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesmartcityjournal.com\/en\/opinion\/medieval-chess-promoted-racial-harmony","title":{"rendered":"Medieval chess promoted racial harmony"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the so-called \u2018game of kings\u2019 defied racial attitudes by celebrating the intellectual prowess of winners, irrespective of their skin colour<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A 13th-century Black chess player is about to defeat his white opponent. He looks relaxed \u2013 he has a bottle of red wine within reach and a glass filled to the brim. He sits on a finely decorated bench as an equal to his light-skinned opponent: a cleric.<\/span><\/p>\n

This friendly, intellectual scene appears in a lavish treatise on chess completed in Seville in 1283 CE for King Alfonso X of Castile.<\/span><\/p>\n

This image is a world away from contemporary depictions of Muslim captives being forcibly baptized, or of darker-skinned people\u00a0executing white\u00a0Christian martyrs. But it is far from unique.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cambridge historian Dr Krisztina Ilko has found a wealth of international evidence of chess subverting racial stereotypes and structures in the Middle Ages. Today, her study,<\/span>\u00a0\u2018<\/span><\/i>Chess and Race in the Global Middle Ages<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u2019,\u00a0<\/span><\/i>published in\u00a0<\/span>Speculum,<\/span><\/i>\u00a0received the Medieval Academy of America\u2019s prestigious \u2018Article Prize in Critical Race Studies\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

King Alfonso\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Libro de axedrez<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0(1283), now housed in El Escorial in Spain, features dozens of depictions of non-white players from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, each demonstrating their intellectual prowess.<\/span><\/p>\n

One scene depicts a contest between a Muslim and a Jewish player. Another depicts four players identified as Mongols. One casually leans on a sabre but the weapon doesn\u2019t pose a threat \u2013 the only combat is on the chess board. This scene contrasts other European depictions of Mongols which often associated them with vice and violence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMedieval sources repeatedly state that chess is war without bloodshed, and that it represents a just world,\u201d says Dr Ilko, a\u00a0<\/span>medieval historian from Queens\u2019 College, Cambridge.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChess 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 civilizations, to interact with each other. It was an intellectual exchange.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Racial structures and race thinking were very much present in the medieval period, even if they didn’t use the same words we use today. Chess, Dr Ilko argues, shows that these structures and ideas could be countered and that intellectual prowess could empower people to challenge them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Ilko says: \u201cWhen people with non-white skin colour are depicted in medieval images, scholars have tended to see them in either exalted or subdued positions. So you get the Queen of Sheba at one extreme and executioners and other malignant forces at the other. Chess reveals a different, more complex story.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChess was and remains a game of logic, where intellectual prowess matters. Chess operated on a different plane where people could engage with each other as equals, irrespective of their skin colour. What mattered was \u2018who’s smarter?\u2019, \u2018who can win?\u2019, not \u2018who’s more powerful or socially superior?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Middle Ages, Ilko points out, Europe was lagging behind Islamic science, and King Alfonso\u2019s court actively acquired and translated Islamic knowledge. At the same time, Islamic chess players were admired for their refined techniques, cleverness and tactics. Out of 103 chess problems depicted in King Alfonso\u2019s treatise, 88 follow the Muslim style of playing. Islamic chess masters included the early 8th-century judge, Sa\u2019id ibn Jubair, who was admired for winning contests while blindfolded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chess sets represented the world and its people<\/h2>\n

The game\u2019s name in Arabic (<\/span>shatranj<\/span><\/i>) and Middle Persian (<\/span>chatrang<\/span><\/i>) derive from a variant form of the Sanskrit word\u00a0<\/span>chaturanga<\/span><\/i>\u00a0or four-limbed. This is because chess pieces are thought to be originally inspired by the four main constituents of the Indian army of late antiquity: infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the game was adopted and adapted across different civilizations, Ilko argues, localised concepts of human difference constantly transformed how \u2018chessmen\u2019 appeared. Ilko points to the use of facial features including eye-shape and beards, as well as clothing, but argues that colour played a particularly important role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChess boards immediately had two contrasting colours and the opposing chess pieces were also differentiated through colour,\u201d Dr Ilko says. \u201cThis allowed medieval people to project ideas of skin colour and race onto the game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Persian respect for Indian chess masters<\/h2>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>Shahnama<\/span><\/i>, a monumental epic narrating the history of Persian people from the Creation to the Islamic conquest in the seventh century, contains an image depicting how the game of chess was transmitted from India to Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scholars interpreting these 14th-century illustrations \u2013 including two versions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York \u2013 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

This interpretation is wrong, Dr Ilko argues. The Indian ambassador\u2019s skin colour and clothing indicate that he\u2019s a foreigner but certainly not a defeated one. He is, in fact, shown as a champion of the powerful Indian raja and a guardian of coveted Indian knowledge introducing chess to the Persians for the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe dark skin colour of intellectual Indian figures in Persian manuscripts challenged the value systems shared by both Christian and Islamic worlds that privileged whiteness,\u201d Dr Ilko says.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the text of the\u00a0<\/span>Shahnama<\/span><\/i>, the king of India sent an embassy to the Sassanian ruler Kushraw I Anushirvan (ruled 531\u201379 CE) challenging him to figure out how the game was played or pay tribute. The sh\u0101h ordered his counsellors to solve the puzzle but only his clever vizier B\u016bzurjmihr managed to show the Indian ambassador where the pieces went and how they moved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chess in a Mallorcan altarpiece<\/h2>\n

Another of Ilko\u2019s discoveries relates to an overlooked depiction of chess in a late 14th-century altarpiece dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra. Currently exhibited in the Museu de Mallorca in Palma, the altarpiece comes from the demolished church of San Nicol\u00e1s in Portop\u00ed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The game is set in a Muslim court and involves a dark-skinned man playing chess with a light-skinned opponent. Ilko argues that the scene is a rare depiction of a miracle narrated in the French play\u00a0<\/span>Le Jeu de saint Nicolas<\/span><\/i> written around 1200. In it, a group of \u201cpagans,\u201d most likely Muslims, defeat an invading Christian army and stumble upon a sole survivor praying in front of a statue of Saint Nicholas.<\/span><\/p>\n

The local Muslim king positions a statue of Nicholas to watch over his treasures but after gambling over chess in a tavern, three thieves successfully rob the treasury. Saint Nicholas later appears and prompts the gambler-thieves to return the riches, eventually convincing the king and his court to convert to Christianity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ilko says the painting reflects Mallorca\u2019s complex Islamic and Christian heritage, while counteracting widely accepted medieval ideas about skin colour. \u201cBy representing the king with visibly darker skin than the gambler-thief, this painting challenged the dominant value scheme that prioritised whiteness,\u201d Ilko argues.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo much has changed since the Middle Ages but chess is more global than ever,\u201d Dr Ilko says. \u201cPeople 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\u2019s especially dominated by a Christian worldview. Chess reveals a more diverse and fun Middle Ages.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One article of: Tomm Almeroth-Williams<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/stories\/medieval-chess-promoted-racial-harmony<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Image:<\/i><\/b> <\/b>St Nicolas miracle chess scene in the late-14th-century altarpiece from the church of San Nicol\u00e1s in Portop\u00ed, now in the Museu de Mallorca<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Reference<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Krisztina Ilko, \u2018<\/span><\/i>Chess and Race in the Global Middle Ages<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u2019, Speculum, 99:2. DOI: 10.1086\/729294<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the so-called \u2018game of kings\u2019 defied racial attitudes by celebrating the intellectual prowess of winners, irrespective of their skin colour A 13th-century Black chess player is about to defeat his white opponent. He looks relaxed \u2013 he has a bottle of red wine within reach and a glass filled to the brim. He sits\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_scj_primary_category_id":122,"_scj_featured":false,"_scj_featured_from":"","_scj_featured_until":"","_scj_featured_order":0,"_scj_visibility_class":"current","_scj_layout_family":"standard","_scj_article_style":"","_scj_display_overrides":[],"_scj_intro_image_id":21166,"_scj_intro_alt":"Medieval chess promoted racial harmony","_scj_intro_caption":"","_scj_intro_class":"","_scj_intro_float":"","_scj_full_image_id":21166,"_scj_full_alt":"Medieval chess promoted racial harmony","_scj_full_caption":"","_scj_full_class":"","_scj_full_float":"","_scj_media_type":"","_scj_media_provider":"","_scj_media_external_id":"","_scj_media_url":"","_scj_media_poster_id":0,"_scj_media_width":0,"_scj_media_height":0,"_scj_media_aspect_ratio":"","_scj_media_description":"","_scj_gallery_items":[],"_scj_related_post_ids":[],"_scj_additional_authors":[],"scj_layout_family":"standard","scj_media_provider":"","scj_media_url":"","scj_full_caption":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[3749,3750,3752,3748,183,3751],"class_list":["post-21167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-culture","tag-diversity","tag-equality","tag-heritage","tag-research","tag-society"],"yoast_head":"\nMedieval chess promoted racial harmony - thesmartcityjournal.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thesmartcityjournal.com\/en\/opinion\/medieval-chess-promoted-racial-harmony\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Medieval chess promoted racial harmony - thesmartcityjournal.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How the so-called \u2018game of kings\u2019 defied racial attitudes by celebrating the intellectual prowess of winners, irrespective of their skin colour A 13th-century Black chess player is about to defeat his white opponent. 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