Chess

Variants

• Byzantine Chess -- A 10th century variant of Shatranj played on a round board.
• Chaturanga -- Generally assumed to be the earliest version of chess, from 7th century India.
• Citadel Chess -- A variant played on a 10 x 10 board, with four "citadels".
• Complete Chess -- An Arabic 10x10 variant, purportedly the oldest known decimal chess variant.
• Courier Chess -- A popular German variant played on a 12 x 8 board.
• Escaques aka The Zodiac Game, Celestial Chess -- A chess variant from the Alfonso MS, which is almost (but not quite) completely unlike Chess.
• Four Seasons Chess -- A 13th century 4-player variant.
• Four-player Chaturanga -- A 4-handed variant from around the tenth century.
• Gala aka Farmer's Chess -- A Danish / German game, which may go back to period.
• Grande Acedrex -- A 12 x 12 13th century variant.
• Indian / Turkish Great Chess -- A good 10 x 10 variant.
• Oblong Chess -- A 4 x 16 variant, often played with dice.
• Shatranj -- The basic medieval game which spread through the Arabic world to Europe. This is the nearest thing to "generic medieval chess".
• Shatranj Kamil -- A 10 x 10 variant that adds camels.
• Shogi -- One of the main oriental variations of Chess.
• Tamerlanes Chess -- A particularly complex 14th century variant.

Reconstructions and Other Discussions

• Imran Ghory's History of Games (Overview) -- A snapshot of the page from one of the folks working in the field, whose page went bye-bye. Mostly links into the Wayback Machine now. (more)
• Met Lecture 1 on the History of Chess (Video, History) -- A YouTube video lecture on Chess (more)
• Caxton's "The Game and Playe of the Chesse" (Transcription) -- This is a lovely transcription of an important and not-easy-to-read book on Chess. (more)
• On the Explanation of Chess and Backgammon (History, Transcription, Translation, Facsimile) -- A medieval Persian source, describing how Chess came to Persia and how "backgammon" (games within the Tables) was invented. (more)
• Vat.lat.5854 (Facsimile) -- An apparently-anonymous (?), but large and interesting manuscript, full of what appear to be chess problems. The hand isn't the easiest to read, but appears to be Latin, and there is a lot of it. (more)
• Games in *The Academy of Armory* (Transcription) -- Transcription by Justin du Coeur and Jeff Singman of the relevant sections from this 1688 book on heraldry, which happens to talk a lot about a lot of stuff. (more)
• Repetición de amores y Arte de ajedrez (Facsimile) -- Online facsimile of a 1497 Spanish book on Chess (more)
• Chess Problems in the NYPL (Facsimile) -- Half a dozen scanned pages from the New York Public Library's collection, showing chess problems, apparently from 14th c. Italy. (more)
• The Chess Variant Pages (Reconstruction) -- The most important site on the subject, covering an enormous spectrum of chess variations, both period and modern. Note particularly the Historic Chess Variants page, which collects all historical versions. Many of the Variant links go into there. (more)
• The Variant Chess Website (Organizations) -- An archive of the site of the now-defunct British Chess Variants Society. Includes downloadable editions of Variant Chess, the journal of the Society (more)
• Carolus Chess page (History, Overview) -- An interesting overview of the history of chess. A few sections need a grain of salt, but worth looking over. (more)
• Tractatus de scacchis, de tabulis et de merellis (Facsimile) -- Online facsimile of an early 15th century book on Chess, Tables and Merels, containing bazillions of puzzles. Extremely neat! (more)
• The Old Texts (History) -- A deeply detailed chronology of the known Chess sources. Note that this runs five pages -- don't miss the navigation bar at the end! Nicely color-codes the sources (Indian, Chinese and European) so you can keep track of these highly parallel histories. (more)
• A History of Chess, by HJR Murray (History, Rules) -- The definitive work on Chess history and variants. A century old, but still the gold standard. (more)
• Vida's Scacchia Ludus (Transcription, Translation) -- A transcription of a 16th century Latin poem about a chess game between the gods. Also, a full translation on a separate page. (more)
• The Enigma of the Birth of Chess (History) -- A multi-page analysis of what we know about the early history of Chess (more)
• The Playe of Chess (Facsimile) -- Relatively high-resolution images at Digital Bodleian, from Caxton's English translation of De ludo scachorum. One of the first books published in English! Not actually very useful from a rules POV, though: this is mostly moral philosophy, using Chess and its pieces as a metaphor. (more)
• Chess History and Reminiscences (History) -- A 19th century book on Chess, by HE Bird, transcribed by Project Gutenberg. (more)
• Mayhematics' Guide to Variant Chess () -- This is an enormous, if extremely concise, index of chess variations. Some are period, but most are not. (more)
• James Masters' History of Chess (History) -- A quick overview of where the various subfamilies fit in. (more)
• Facsimile images of Jacobus de Cessolis' MS (Facsimile) -- A Latin text that uses Chess as a metaphor for the various roles of human life. Later translated into English and published by Caxton: Chess -- Caxton's "The Game and Playe of the Chesse" (more)
• Medieval European Chess at The History of Chess (Reconstruction, History) -- A very good, not-too-long description of core SCA-period chess. (more)
• The Lewis Hoard of Gaming Pieces: A Re-examination of their Context, Meanings, Discovery and Manufacture (Archaeology, Equipment, History, Research) -- (more)
• So You Have This Chess Set (Reconstruction) -- A quick PDF introduction to several period Chess variations. (more)
• Medieval Chess Pieces (Equipment) -- Images of a variety of period pieces, from collector Jon Crumiller. (more)
• The Games of Chess and Backgammon in Sasanian Persia (History) -- A longish and very scholarly essay, adducing lots of evidence for early forms of the games in Persia, and discussing what we know about them in Persian society. (more)
• Jean-Louis Cazaux' History of Chess (History, Reconstruction) -- An excellent in-depth site, giving lots of information on the topic. Discusses the history, the archaeology, lots of papers about chess, many variations (including a lot of Eastern variants), etc. (more)
• The Beginnings of Chess (History, Archaeology) -- An in-depth academic paper analyzing the sources, with an eye towards figuring out where Chess came from. (more)