Medieval chess promoted racial harmony and mutual respect
Medieval manuscripts, paintings and chess sets reveal that the so-called ‘game of kings’ defied social structures and 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 – 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. This friendly, intellectual scene appears in a lavish treatise on chess completed in Seville in 1283 CE for King Alfonso X of Castile.
This image is a world away from contemporary depictions of ...