It's Only a Pawn

White pawns from the Charlemagne chess set, ca. 1050

I’ve decided to write a history of chess pieces, one piece at a time. I’m hardly the first person to do so, but I thought it would be fun. All the pieces were either made by me or are in my collection.

It might seem appropriate to start with the king, the focus of the entire game. Trapping the king is the central goal of chess. But, I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to start at the bottom, the lowly pawn.

Pawns have gotten a bad rap over the years. A commonly used phrase, often by talking heads on History Channel documentaries, is that people of lesser standing were moved around by kings and the nobility “like pawns on a chessboard.” What they fail to understand, of course, is that ALL the pieces on a chessboard are moved around by the player. Duh. I guess they'd be easy to checkmate! Part of what is behind that sort of phrase is the idea that pawns were worthless, disposable, just cannon fodder to protect the king and his court. Actually, that is not true.

This was even more untrue during the Middle Ages. When chess came to Europe around the 8th century it was a very different game. The queen was not a queen, but a vizier or general (and the weakest piece on the board), the rook was a chariot, the bishop was an elephant with limited moves, and the other pieces were the same as today. In such a game, with only the rook having unlimited movement in one direction, action in the game was more localized. Hence, the pawns were very important strategically. They were used to form a barrier against the forward movement of the other side.

Even in modern chess pawns can be very powerful. You can checkmate with a few pawns with cover. Really.

This did not make them less valuable, cannon fodder (although there weren’t cannons in Europe at the time), disposable pieces of lesser value. They had a great deal of value. They were often used in a way that they were captured, given that there were eight of them. That didn’t make them less valuable. They were used strategically.

Having said that, the uniformity of pawns in medieval chess might give the impression they were less valuable. They represented foot soldiers, of which there were more than there were of other components of the army.

As chess evolved in India the pieces represented the four parts of an army. The rook was the chariot, capable of high speed movement straight ahead. The knight, which along with the rook has retained its original movement since the beginning, was more nimble and could turn off if necessary. The bishop (at the time an elephant) was limited in movement, but if it were in the right place it could be devastating. Finally, the pawn represented the infantry--soldiers on foot, not in a chariot, riding a horse or elephant, and carrying a shield and spear. All parts of the army were important, and each had its own function.

l to r: Persian/early European pawn, ca. 1000;  Lewis Chessmen, ca. 1100; Spanish, ca. 1250, Scandinavia, ca. 1300 Russia, ca. 1350; England, ca. 1480; Italy, ca. 1490; Germany, ca. 1500

The development of the chess pawn is an interesting one. The pawn as it came out of Persia in the 7th century was small, with some decoration. Most pieces from this period resemble that form. The pawns in the Lewis Chessmen are similar, with two designs, perhaps reflecting two different sides. The rest of the pieces are figural, and I’ll get to them another time.

l to r: England, ca. 1560; Italy, ca. 1600; England, ca. 1700; Portugal (made in India) ca. 1650; France, ca. 1750; England, ca. 1750, England, ca. 1830

Regional variations on the pawn cropped up in various parts of Europe. In places the pawn became somewhat bottle shaped, with a small neck that was easy to pick up. In many parts of Europe, the pawn remained a the simplest piece, taking the shape of a barrel or cylinder with minimal decoration. Some examples are illustrated here. One notable exception is the pawn in the so-called Charlemagne chess set now in Paris, made in Sicily during the eleventh century. Here the pawn is a foot soldier.

As time went on pawns were still uniform in shape but took on many different designs. In places they retained that bottle-shaped form, while disks and other additions mad them more elaborate. In some designs the pawn became a miniature of the bishop and/or queen, such as in the Regence style. In the case of the ubiquitous Staunton design, introduced in England in 1849, the pawn had its own design not based on another piece.

l to ro: English, bone, ca. 1860-1900; German, wood, ca. 1840-80; French, Staunton design, wood,  ca. 1920; German, wood, ca. 1860-80; French, Regence design, wood, ca. 1880; Irish, Killarney, wood, ca. 1880; Russian, wood, ca. 1950. The only piece I made here is the Killarney piece.

Pawns are almost always the shortest pieces on the board. That has remained consistent. That does not make them of less value or insignificant, however. In modern chess the pawn can be promoted to any piece the player desires once it has made it to the other side. It often takes most of the game to get a pawn to the last rank on the other side. It is very rare for a player to get more than one pawn to the other side. Generally players will promote their pawn to a queen, since it is the most powerful piece on the board. New chess sets today quite often will have an extra queen for each side. That was not true when I was learning how to pay as a kid. Back then, you took a rook and turned it upside down to make a second queen. That’s why rooks in old sets will often have damage to the top.

Enjoy the photos of pawns through the ages!